OFTBE  SANCTUM 


/C 


SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 


AN 


INSIDE  VIEW  OF  AN  EDITOR'S  LIFE. 


BY 


A.  F.  HILL, 


AUTHOR   OF   "OUR   BOYS,"    "THE   WHITE   ROCKS,"    "  JOHN   SMITH'S   FUNNY   ADVENTURES 
ON   A   CRUTCH,"    ETC.,    ETC.,    ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON,  REMSEN  &  HAFFELFINGER, 

624,  626  &  628  MARKET  STREET. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

CLAXTON,  REMSEN  &  HAFFELFINGER, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


J.  FAGAN  &  SON, 

STEKEOTYI'K   FOUNDERS, 

PHILADELPHIA. 


TO  THE  FRA  TERNITY: 

To  THE  EDITOR; 
To  THE  REPORTER; 

To  THE  CORRESPONDENT; 
To  THE  CONTRIBUTOR; 

To  THE  PROOF-READER; 

TO   THE   COPY-HOLDER  ; 

To  THE  PRESSMAN; 
To  THE  FOREMAN; 

.    To  THE  COMPOSITOR;  IN  A  WORD, 
To  THE  DEVIL, 

THE  AUTHOR  MOST  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATES  HIS 
"SECRETS  Of  THE  SANCTUM." 


-     , 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
EDITORS'  QUALIFICATIONS 9 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  REPORTERS 16 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  CITY  EDITOR 29 

CHAPTER  IV. 
CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL  WORK 31 

CHAPTER  V. 
SLANG 46 

CHAPTER  VI. 
INTERVIEWING 55 

CHAPTER  VII. 
JENKINS 60 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  EDITORIAL  ROOMS 65 

I*  V 


vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
EDITORS'  WORK 68 

CHAPTER  X. 
BOOK-REVIEWING     .....»•••      92 

CHAPTER  XL 
EDITORS'  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 96 

CHAPTER  XII. 
EFFECTS  OF  BRAIN-WORK       .        .        .        ,        ,        .        .107 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
MY  "ASSISTANT" .    in 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  RELIGION  OF  EDITORS     .        .        .        .        ,        ,        .122 

CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  PAY  OF  NEWSPAPER  MEN 131 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
DEAD-HEADING 140 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
T'JT?  BOHEMIAN 146 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
THE  PRINTERS 154 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
PROOF 170 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

CHAPTER  XX. 
TYPOGRAPHIC  ERRORS 176 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
PUNCTUATION 183 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
OUR  ORTHOGRAPHY 186 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
A  BAD  EDITOR         .  192 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
THE  "  ENUNCIATOR  " 204 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
"MY  FRIEND  GEORGE" 221 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
THE  BORE 231 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

A  NOTED  LIBEL  SUIT 242 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  GALLOWS 255 

•  ' 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
"  TRICKS  OF  THE  TRADE  " 268 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
HUMORS  OF  JOURNALISM 284 


VI 11  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
PRIMITIVE  JOURNALISM 297 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
OUR  DAILIES  AND  WEEKLIES 304 

CHAPTER    XXXIII. 
ONE  WORD  MORE 310 


SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 


CHAPTER   I, 

EDITORS'   QUALIFICATIONS. 

EDITORS  of  newspapers,  together  with  poets,  novelists, 
historians,  and  other  literary  men,  are  looked  upon  by  a 
numerous  class  of  persons,  who  seldom  or  never  come  in  contact 
with  them,  as  very  superior  beings.  The  merchant,  the  banker, 
the  mechanic  and  clerk  in  the  city — and  even  the  plowboy  in 
the  country — unconsciously  learn  to  associate  in  their  minds  a 
mysterious  dignity  with  the  unseen  being  whose  brain  conceives 
what  appears  "in  print,"  to  be  read  by  thousands  and  hundreds 
of  thousands.  They  realize  that,  while  their  own  sphere  is 
very  narrow,  that  of  the  writer,  whose  thoughts  are  placed  in 
type  and  repeated  to  thousands,  is  in  a  manner  illimitable.  So 
they  naturally  grow  to  regard  the  invisible  writer  with  feelings 
akin  to  veneration.  It  is  not  entirely  unreasonable.  If  there 
is  anything  that  ought  to  raise  one  man  above  another,  as  a 
man,  it  would  seem  to  be  intellectual  power,  rather  than 
wealth,  a  proud  ancestry,  physical  strength,  or  a  fine  personal 
appearance. 

Those  not  familiar  with  the  literary  man  are  perhaps  a  little 
too  prone  almost  to  apotheosize  him  —  picturing  him  as  tall, 

9 


10  SECRETS   OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

dignified,  commanding,  and  exceptionally  "fine-looking."  In 
this  they  err.  As  a  rule,  editors  and  authors  are  not  strikingly 
handsome,  and,  moving  unknown  in  a  miscellaneous  crowd, 
few  of  them  would  be  picked  out  as  probable  men  of  mark, 
One  of  the  homeliest  men  I  ever  saw,  although  not  disfigured, 
was  an  editor,  and  an  unusually  brilliant  one,  as  well  as  a  rare 
poet,  wit  and  satirist.  It  was  years  ago  that  I  last  saw  him, 
and  he  is  now  at  rest ;  but  when  I  recall  him  I  do  not  think  of 
his  unsymmetrical  features,  his  commonplace  form,  his  tangled 
and  neglected  hair,  his  fading  eyesight,  his  careless  dress:  I 
remember  only  the  brilliant  mind  and  noble  soul  that  grew 
deeper  into  nature  than  the  ephemeral  body.  I  refer  to  George 
D.  Prentice,  of  the  Louisville  Journal,  whose  keen  wit  and  stir 
ring  humor  made  millions  laugh,  whose  trenchant  satire  made 
many  a  political  opponent  "writhe."  He  had  some  bitter 
enemies  while  living,  but  in  his  grave  he  is  remembered  by  all 
as  a  warm-hearted,  pure  and  upright  man. 

Among  the  first  in  the  catalogue  of  men  who  will  always  be 
rated  as  famous  American  journalists,  the  name  of  Horace 
Greeley  naturally  finds  a  place.  Indeed,  he  was  foremost 
among  the  founders  of  enterprising  journalism  in  America 
under  the  new  order  of  things,  in  the  epoch  of  steam-power 
presses,  and  other  wonderful  machinery  of  late  years  introduced 
in  printing-offices.  He  was  the  son  of  a  common  New  Hamp 
shire  farmer,  and  was  a  green,  awkward  country  boy  when  he 
left  his  home  to  seek  employment  in  a  large  city.  If  at  that 
time  he  had  told  his  simple  neighbors  that  he  proposed  to 
become  an  editor,  he  would  of  course  have  been  laughed  at,  and 
that  very  immoderately. 

This  brings  me  to  one  of  the  subjects  first  to  be  considered 
in  this  volume — the  aspirations  of  young  persons  to  be  writers. 
It  would  scarcely  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  twelve  of  every 


EDITORS'1  QUALIFICATIONS.  II 

dozen  young  people  who  find  themselves  capable  of  writing  a 
few  acceptable  verses,  or  a  correctly-worded  communication  to 
a  newspaper,  begin  to  entertain  notions  of  writing  regularly  for 
the  press.  The  truth  is,  every  one,  no  matter  what  his  occupa 
tion  may  be,  ought  to  be  able  to  write  a  sensible  and  grammatic 
letter,  either  to  a  newspaper  or  to  a  friend. 

It  does  not  therefore  follow  that  every  one  who  can  write 
well  enough  to  " appear  in  print"  creditably  is  qualified  to  be 
an  editor,  or  to  make  writing  for  the  press  his  regular  calling. 
Journalism  is  a  business,  as  much  as  watch-making,  blacksmith- 
ing,  banking,  farming,  or  navigation.  It  is  generally  conceded 
among  all  classes  that  a  youth  should  be  trained  to  follow  the 
business  for  which  he  exhibits  the  greatest  taste,  and  in  the 
mysteries  of  which  he  at  least  shows  signs  of  some  tact.  Now, 
the  actual  duties  of  a  journalist  are  little  comprehended  by  the 
general  public ;  and  when  I  treat  of  this  subject  at  some  length 
in  another  chapter,  it  will  be  understood  that  great  misconcep 
tions  of  them  exist  outside  of  the  fraternity. 

It  is  a  remark  often  made,  that  "everybody  thinks  he  could 
run  a  newspaper. "  It  looks  so  easy — in  fact,  the  newspaper 
seems  to  run  itself,  in  a  manner,  if  only  let  alone.  Yet  it  hap 
pens  that,  of  all  vocations,  professional  or  mechanical,  journal 
ism  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  to  master.  The  reasons  for  this 
are  numerous.  There  are  few  rules — a  very  few  general  rules  — 
by  which  to  be  guided ;  work  that  would  answer  in  one  com 
munity  would  not  answer  in  another;  work  that  would  be 
satisfactory  in  one  establishment  would  not  be  satisfactory  in 
another,  even  though  it  might  be  in  the  same  city  or  commu 
nity  ;  what  would  be  all  right  at  one  time  would  be  all  wrong 
at  another ;  and,  in  fact,  in  no  office,  in  no  city  or  community, 
and  at  no  time,  could  the  editor  please  everybody,  even  though 
he  possessed  the  attribute  of  omniscience. 


12  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Thus,  only  long  years  of  experience,  and  patient,  unweary 
ing  application,  backed  by  a  natural  fund  of  common  sense  and 
sound  judgment,  and  a  taste  for  the  business,  can  ever  make  a 
proficient  editor.  When  a  writer  has  been  five  years  a  journal 
ist,  he  has  just  gained  one  most  essential  point,  namely,  a  proper 
sense  of  how  little  he  knows  and  how  much  is  yet  to  be  learned. 
When  he  has  spent  an  additional  five  years  in  various  offices  — 
daily  and  weekly  —  he  discovers  that  there  is  still  something 
new  to  be  learned  almost  every  day.  This  view  may  appear 
discouraging ;  but  the  man  who  intends  to  adopt  journalism  as 
his  business,  and  is  ambitious  to  deserve  the  title  of  editor, 
may  as  well  make  up  his  mind  at  the  start  that  he  has  a  stupen 
dous  task  before  him,  and  prepare  to  look  upon  his  first  three  or 
four  years  of  labor  in  that  sphere  as  a  rigorous  apprenticeship, 
in  which  he  must  work  hard  and  exercise  an  uncommon  amount 
of  patience. 

Yes,  almost  any  one  can  be  an  editor  —  after  a  fashion.  A 
rich  man  may  become  an  editor,  or  make  one  of  his  son  or 
nephew,  on  the  shortest  notice.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent 
his  buying  or  renting  a  building  adapted  to  his  purpose,  having 
the  requisite  materials  put  in,  hiring  the  necessary  labor,  and 
"starting"  a  newspaper,  with  his  name,  or  that  of  his  protege, 
on  it  as  the  editor.  This  he  may  do  without  possessing  the 
slightest  knowledge  of  the  business,  and  he  may  continue  to 
"edit"  and  publish  his  paper  just  as  long  as  he  chooses  to  sink 
certain  sums  of  money  in  the  enterprise ;  but  he  will  surely 
never  make  it  a  success  unless  he  intrust  its  management  to 
experienced  hands,  the  services  of  which  his  money  may  com 
mand.  Then  he  is  only  the  editor  in  name,  but  is  no  more  an 
editor  in  fact,  and  has  no  more  made  himself  one  by  this  pro 
cess,  than  a  man  who  never  handled  a  hatchet  or  saw  in  his  life 
would  make  a  carpenter  of  himself  by  buying  a  chest  of  tools 
and  employing  a  real  carpenter  to  use  them. 


EDITORS'   QUALIFICATIONS.  13 

In  country  *  districts,  where  journalism  has  not  advanced 
nearly  so  far  as  it  has  in  large  cities,  persons  not  infrequently 
become  "editors"  by  buying  and  taking  the  control  of  weekly 
papers,  or  by  setting  up  and  conducting  small  newspaper 
establishments  with  a  few  hundred  dollars.  Many  of  these  who 
pass  for  "editors"  year  after  year  in  their  own  communities 
were  merely  born  to  blush  unseen,  and  waste  their  talents  on 
the  rural  air.  They  will  never  make  their  mark  in  journalism, 
for  the  good  and  sufficient  reason  that  "it  is  not  in  them." 
Many  a  good  mechanic,  farmer,  school-teacher,  yea,  and 
printer,  has  been  spoiled  in  the  process  of  making  a  poor 
editor. 

There  are  a  number  of  qualifications  that  are  indispensable 
to  success  as  a  newspaper  editor.  Among  them  are  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  grammar  in  its  various  branches,  notably  syntax 
and  orthography;  a  clear  and  active  brain;  a  good  memory; 
familiarity  with  ancient  and  modern  history,  and  with  the 
leading  events  of  the  day;  an  aptness  for  writing  at  once 
rapidly  and  correctly;  and  an  unusual  command  of  language. 

Who  has  not  sent  "  voluntary  contributions  "  to  newspapers, 
only  to  have  them  rejected?  I  remember  that  at  a  "tender 
age"  I  sent  a  "poem"  to  a  country  newspaper,  (to  which  I 
had  repeatedly,  though  at  respectable  intervals,  sent  contribu 
tions  that  were  either  "respectfully  declined"  or  "treated 
with  silent  contempt,")  and  it  was  accepted  and  published— 
printed,  strangely  enough,  without  even  one  typographic 
error.  I  also  remember  that  I  experienced  an  amount  of 
delight  at  first  seeing  one  of  my  "effusions"  "in  print,"  to 
describe  which  just  now  I  have  no  adequate  words  at  hand; 
also,  that  I  vainly  (yes,  vainly)  thought  I  saw  in  myself  the 
germ  of  a  great  poet.  Probably  it  was  "great  poetry."  Had 
I  then  been  familiar  with  some  of  the  really  meritorious  verses 


14  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

written  by  such  poets  as  Dryden,  Bryant,  and  Drake,  at  the  age 
of  from  eight  to  ten  years,  I  must  have  been  impressed  with 
such  an  awful  sense  of  their  superiority  over  my  own  boyish 
" poetry"  as  would  effectually  have  cured  me  of  poetic  aspira 
tions.  I  think  I  may  venture  the  opinion  that  there  are  not 
many  actual  poets  in  the  world.. 

To  have  a  manuscript  rejected,  as  of  too  little  merit  even  for 
publication,  after  one  has  spent  hours,  and  perhaps  days,  in 
elaborating  and  amplifying  it,  and  after  he  has  flattered  him 
self—as,  of  course,  he  has — that  it  is  an  extraordinary  pro 
duction,  has  an  extremely  depressing  effect  upon  the  spirits  of 
the  ambitious  writer,  rivaling  even  that  refined  soul-torture  one 
endures  just  after  getting  up  from  the  gaming-table  at  which  he 
has  lost  his  last  hundred  dollars.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no  keener 
mental  anguish— while  it  lasts ;  but  the  sharp  edge  of  the  agony 
soon  wears  off,  and  the  chances  are  that  scarcely  a  week  elapses 
before  the  literary  aspirant  tries  it  again,  once  more  braving  the 
awful  contingence  of  the  receipt  of  a  "respectfully  declined" 
manuscript.  When  a  certain  editor  had  grown  to  be  able  to 
look  back  and  smile  at  these  little  disappointments,  he,  a  few 
years  ago,  through  the  columns  of  a  Boston  paper,  addressed 
his  respects  to  an  unaccepted  literary  production  after  the  fol 
lowing  fashion : 

TO   A   REJECTED   MANUSCRIPT. 

Thou  thing  !     I  pity  thee.     I  hate  tliee,  too; 

For  I  have  spent  some  labor  on  thee,  now 

Thou  dost  come  back  to  me,  without  regard 

To  feelings — which  are  very  sensitive. 

Thou  contribution — thou  gratuitous 

Piece  for  a  paper ;  yea,  thou  article  ! 

Thou  lucubration,  which  I  deemed  should  rend 

The  heavens  and  the  earth— convulse  mankind— 


EDITORS'  QUALIFICATIONS.  15 

Make  men  of  women,  women  of  vile  men — 
Make  mighty  presidents,  and  unmake  kings— 
Uproot  society  and  shake  from  its 
Foundation  ev'ry  boasted  work  of  man — 
Thou — thou  rejec — respectfully  declined? 
I  do  despise  thee,  fiend ! 

For  thee  I  burned 

The  midnight  oil ;  for  thee  I  racked  my  brain 
To  frame  each  sentence  with  a  with'ring  power — 
Searched  Noah  Webster  through  and  through  to  get 
The  proper  word ;  for  thee  consulted  all 
The  latest  rules  in  rhetoric ;  for  thee 
Sat  all  alone  at  midnight's  ghastly  hour, 
When  ev'ry  eye  within  the  domicile 
Was  sealed,  except  mine  own ! 

Thou  graceless  thing ! 

I  feel  that  I  could  clutch  thee  up  and  rend — 
Tear — burn — destroy  thee — let  the  hissing  flames 
Enwrap  themselves  about  thy  hateful  form 
And  feed  on  thee  with  grim  voracity ! 

But  I'll  be  calm,  and  nothing  do  in  haste. 
In  fact,  now  that  I  think,  I'll  lock  thee  up 
For  thy  offence ;  and  when  I  bring  thee  forth 
Into  the  light  again,  thou  wayward  thing, 
Re — vise  thee  ! 


1 6  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE  REPORTERS. 

THERE  are  but  few  thorough  editors  who  have  not,  at  one 
time  or  other,  been  reporters ;  and  there  are  many  excel 
lent  newspaper  men  who  do  both  editing  and  reporting  with  equal 
facility — alternating  "inside"  and  "outside"  work.  In  fact, 
it  is  next  to  indispensable  that  a  finished  editor,  particularly 
one  who  is  called  upon  to  assume  the  editorial  management  or 
the  city  editorship  of  a  daily  newspaper,  shall  have  acquired  a 
clear  knowledge  of  the  duties  of  a  reporter.  He  often  has  to 
give  specific  instructions  to  the  reporter;  and  how  shall  he  do  it, 
unless  he  has  had  experience  in  that  line  himself?  There  are 
many,  however,  who  are  distinctively  reporters,  and  who  so 
remain  all  their  lives,  without  ever  once  taking  a  place  in  the 
sanctum,  to  do  "inside"  work.  This  by  no  means  indicates 
a  lack  of  journalistic  ability,  but  is  often  due  to  a  mere  prefer 
ence  for  "outside"  work,  or  to  the  force  of  circumstances. 
Many  a  reporter  prefers  to  be  a  reporter.  The  editor  must  sit 
in  his  chair  all  day,  or  nearly  all  night,  as  the  case  may  be, 
while  the  reporter  is  "  in  and  out,"  rarely  being  confined  to 
the  not-very-cheerful  rooms  of  the  newspaper  for  any  consider 
able  length  of  time. 

A  thorough  reporter,  competent  to  perform  any  task  that  may 
be  assigned  him,  must  be  a  phonographic  or  "short-hand" 
writer,  for  the  most  rapid  penman,  who  is  not  a  short-hand 
writer,  cannot  report  in  full  a  long  speech,  debate,  trial  in 
court,  the  proceedings  of  a  meeting,  or  the  deliberations  of  a 
legislative  body.  In  all  cases  where  every  word  is  to  be 
reported  a  phonographist  is  indispensable.  Yet  there  are  many 


THE  REPORTERS.  I/ 

reporters,  regularly  employed  on  large  dailies,  who  are  not 
short-hand  writers,  but  who  nevertheless  perform  their  duties 
just  as  well  as  though  they  were.  Such  a  reporter  is  frequently 
sent  to  meetings,  courts,  etc.,  when  only  a  general  outline  or 
abstract  report  of  speeches  or  trials  is  desired ;  he  collects  the 
items  at  the  police-stations,  making  certain  daily  or  nightly 
rounds  for  that  purpose ;  or  he  goes  out  to  the  suburbs  to  gather 
the  particulars  of  any  interesting  event,  such  as  a  public 
disaster,  or  a  crime,  to  make  brief  notes  thereof,  and  to  hurry 
back  to  the  office  and  "  write  it  up  "  from  them  in  time  for  the 
next  edition  of  the  paper. 

The  reporter  is  a  news-gatherer,  and,  if  he  is  a  good  one,  he 
will  aim  to  collect  all  the  facts  possibly  obtainable  relative  to 
any  event  he  is  detailed  to  write  up,  and  to  relate  them  in  good, 
plain  and  simple  language.  The  amount  of  space  accorded  to 
any  one  specific  event  must  be  determined  by  its  importance, 
together  with  a  consideration  of  the  whole  amount  of  available 
space.  Sometimes  an  unimportant  item  may  be  "crowded 
out,"  or  "left  over,"  to  make  room  for  a  full  report  of  a  very 
important  affair.  The  city  editor,  through  whose  hands  every 
local  paragraph  should  pass,  regulates  this  matter.  On  occa 
sions  he  finds  it  necessary  to  "cut  down  "  or  amplify  a  para 
graph,  but  this  he  does  not  often  find  necessary  when  the 
reporter  is  a  competent  and  sagacious  one. 

Common  defects  in  the  style  and  idiom  of  many  reporters 
might  here  be  appropriately  pointed  out,  with  advantage,  I  trust, 
to  at  least  a  few  who  may  read  this  volume.  The  subject  is 
one  which  I  almost  hesitate  to  take  up,  not  only  because  of  its 
extensive  proportions,  but  also  because  I  shrink  from  what 
might  seem  an  attitude  of  pedantry.  Both  these  considera 
tions,  however,  are  overcome  by  the  conviction  that  I  should 
fail  to  do  my  whole  duty  should  I  neglect  to  refer  to  this  sub- 


1 8  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

ject ;  and  when  I  do  refer  to  it,  I  do  so  after  the  manner  of  the 
ghost  in  Hamlet,  "more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.-" 

But  let  me  not  be  understood  as  imputing  all  the  blunders 
that  occur  in  the  public  press  to  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the 
writers.  Such  blunders,  as  every  newspaper-man  knows,  are 
often  due  to  the  hurry  that  is  inseparable  from  the  preparation 
of  daily  newspapers.  I  have  seen  some  of  the  most  ludicrous 
bulls  and  anachronisms  perpetrated  by  the  ablest  editors  in 
moments  of  hurry  —  a  few  examples  of  which  will  be  found  on 
another  page. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  men  engaged  in  the  business  of  re 
porting  who  have  no  natural  or  acquired  fitness  for  its  duties, 
and  who  are  cursed  with  a  poverty  of  language,  and  an  imper 
fect  knowledge  of  its  proper  use,  that  ought  to  have  strongly 
suggested  to  them  the  choosing  of  some  other  vocation  —  one 
in  which  "  the  less  they  would  have  had  to  say,  the  better," 
and  especially  one  in  which  they  would  seldom  have  been  called 
upon  to  put  their  thoughts  in  writing. 

When  a  man  or  boy  concludes  to  be  a  reporter,  he  ought  to 
determine  to  be  a  good  one ;  and  I  would  suggest  the  following 
as  the  first  bit  of  instruction  that  should  be  strongly  impressed 
upon  him: 

"  Say  what  you  have  to  say  in  plain  and  clear  language;  avoid  all  redun 
dance,  all  high-sounding,  far-fetched  and  foreign  phrases ;  be  as  accurate, 
truthful  and  direct  as  though  you  were  speaking  from  the  witness-stand ;  as 
careful  as  though  you  were  shooting  at  a  target  for  a  wager:  let  your  object 
be  first  to  see  your  mark  distinctly,  then  to  hit  it  exactly." 

One  of  the  "drunkest"  men  ever  seen  in  the  street  stated 
that  he  and  his  brother  were  engaged  in  the  advancement  of 
the  temperance  cause,  adding :  "He  lectures  on  the  evils  of 
drunkenness,  while  I  set  a  frightful  example."  Probably  he 


THE  REPORTERS.  ig 

did  the  more  effective  work  of  the  two.  In  any  event,  I  shall 
proceed  with  my  instructions  to  reporters  by  citing  (not  setting, 
I  hope)  a  few  frightful  examples.  I  -find  the  following  para 
graph  in  a  leading  New  York  daily : 

FATAL  ACCIDENT.  —  An  old  widow  woman,  eighty  years  of  age,  named 
Mrs.  Mary  Clark,  residing  at  No.  —  East  Thirtieth  Street,  was  found,  at  a  late 
hour  last  night,  lying  at  the  foot  of  the  hall  stairs  in  an  unconscious  and 
dying  condition,  and  soon  afterward  expired.  She  had  probably  fallen 
down  the  stairs  while  ascending  to  her  room.  The  coroner  was  notified. 

Here,  the  reporter  sets  out  by  stating  that  the  subject  of  his 
paragraph  was  "old,"  and  almost  immediately  afterward  gives 
her  age  as  eighty  years.  If  he  intended  to  mention  the  age  of 
the  deceased,  I  cannot  imagine  why  he  should  also  say  she  was 
"old" — except  that  he  feared  the  reader  might  think  Mrs. 
Mary  Clark  was  a  young  woman  or  a  little  girl  * '  eighty  years 
of  age,"  although  few  people  are  considered  very  young  at  that 
age. 

Next,  he  informs  the  reader  that  the  widow  was  a  "  woman," 
thus  discouraging  the  popular  delusion  that  a  widow  may  in  some 
instances  be  a  male  instead  of  a  female.  It  is  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  fulsome  writer  of  the  paragraph  neglected  to  inform 
the  public  that  the  widow's  husband  was  dead.  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  reporter  might  well  have  saved  himself  the  trouble  of 
writing  several  superfluous  words,  and  still  have  been  as  clearly 
understood  by  the  reader  of  news,  if  he  had  begun  the  paragragh, 
after  writing  its  head,  thus  : 

Mrs.  Mary  Clark,  a  widow,  aged  eighty  years,  residing,  etc. 

I  believe  that  the  average  reader  would  not  have  fallen  into 
the  error  of  thinking  that  Mary  Clark  was  a  man — and  her 
name  would  have-  suggested  that  she  was  a  female,  without 
adding  "woman"  to  "widow;"  nor  would  she  have  been 


20  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

deemed  a  little  boy  or  girl,  of  a  very  young  woman,  in  the 
absence  of  the  word  "old,"  as  "aged  eighty  years"  cannot 
be  construed  into  meaning  extreme  youth.  If  the  reporter  had 
written  of  a  "colorless  liquid  without  color,"  or  an  "impon 
derable  substance  without  perceptible  weight,"  he  would  have 
made  himself  scarcely  more  ridiculous.  On  a  par  with  the 
defective  paragraph  above  quoted,  is  one  recently  announcing 
the  "  death  of  a  wealthy  citizen  of  New  York,  worth  a  million 
dollars. "  The  reader  might  have  been  allowed  to  judge  whether 
the  man  "worth  a  million  dollars"  was  wealthy  or  not.  / 
think  he  was:  Rothschild,  Vanderbilt,  Astor,  or  Stewart 
mightn't  think  so. 

Again:  I  find,  under  the  head  of  "Accidents,"  also  in  a 
first-class  New  York  daily  : 

Charlie  Jones,  a  little  boy  of  five  years,  fell  into  a  cistern  at,  etc. 

This  is  another  "frightful  example"  of  plethoric  reporting. 
The  reader  is  first  told  of  the  existence  of  a  person  named 
Charlie  Jones,  and  is  then  informed  that  Charlie  is  a  "little 
boy,"  not  a  little  girl;  then,  having  been  told  that  he  is  a 
"little"  boy,  he  is  told  that  the  "little"  boy  is  five  years  old; 
.just  as  though  anybody  ever  saw  a  big  boy  or  a  grown-up  man 
of  the  age  of  five  years  !  "Charlie  Jones,  five  years  old,"  etc., 
would  have  been  clear  enough  —  would  it  not  ? 

There  are  daily  hundreds  of  instances  in  which  this  ludicrous 
redundance  of  expression  occurs  in  the  work  of  careless  —  or 
shall  I  say,  ignorant?  —  reporters.  Astounding  defects  are 
found  in  the  local  columns  of  many  first-class  daily  newspapers. 
For  example,  you  take  up  your  morning  paper  and  read  that  a 
•man  —  a  victim  of  accident  or  violence  —  was  "  covered  over  " 
with  blood,  and  you  may  be  pardoned  for  wondering  why  the 
word  "over"  was  necessary,  as  "covered"  expresses  the  whole 


THE  REPORTERS.  21 

meaning.  You  also  read  that  something  was  done  "in  the 
meantime,"  whereas  the  word  "meantime"  alone  would 
have  expressed  what  was  wished  understood.  You  also  read 
that  John  Smith  was  struck  over  the  head.  Now,  if  John  re 
ceived  the  blow  over  the  head,  he  had  a  fortunate  escape ;  for  if 
the  weapon  or  missile  went  over  his  head  it  went  above  it,  and 
so  missed  him  altogether.  Probably  he  was  struck  on  the  head. 
A  man  may  receive  a  blow  or  a  wound  over  the  eye  or  knee  — 
not  over  the  head. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  man  will  be  arrested,  as  skillful  detectives 
are  on  his  track. 

In  this  sentence  the  public  is  informed  that  there  is  but  a 
single  doubt  in  the  case,  that  doubt  being  that  the  offender  will 
be  arrested  ;  his  being  arrested  is  the  only  doubtful  thing  about 
it.  What  is  meant  is:  "There  is  no  doubt  that  the  man  will 
be  arrested."  That  makes  it  right;  put  in  the  word  "but" 
where  it  is  not  wanted,  and  the  meaning  is  exactly  reversed. 
I  mention  this  execrable  solecism,  because  it  is  one  almost 
constantly  perpetrated  by  careless  writers  for  the  public 
press. 

Jacob  Jones  died  Sunday. 

If  you  heard  some  one  read  this,  and  so  did  not  see  the 
orthography  of  the  word  "died,"  you  might  ask,  "What  color 
did  he  dye  it?"  The  word  "on"  should  precede  the  name  of 
the  day,  in  tins' case,  just  as  much  as  the  word  "in  "  should  be 
used  in  its  place  in  this  sentence:  "He  did  the  work  in  his 
office."  If  you  omit  the  word  "  on  "  in  the  sentence  announc 
ing  the  death  of  Mr.  Jones,  you  may  as  well  omit  the  preposi 
tion  "at"  in  the  sentence:  "The  train  will  go  at  eight 
o'clock."  How  would  it  sound  to  say:  "The  train  will  go 


22  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

eight  o'clock."  I  couldn't  go  it.  This  may  appear  like  a 
trifling  matter,  and  I  have  only  been  induced  to  allude  to  it  at 
all  by  the  fact  that  I  have  frequently  seen  this  defect  in  the  news 
paragraphs  of  some  of  the  most  carefully-conducted  papers  in 
tke  country.  Besides,  it  is  but  proper  to  point  out  even  the 
smallest  of  every-day  errors,  that  they  may  eventually  be  cor 
rected,  for  whatever  is  worth  doing  at  all,  is  worth  doing  aright; 
and  it  is  highly  important  that  the  language  of  newspapers  —  the 
educators  of  the  masses  —  should  be  brought  as  nearly  to  per 
fection  as  possible,  and  as  soon  as  possible.  Let  the  reader  ask 
himself  whether  this  is  not  true,  before  he  pronounces  me 
hypercritical  or  pedantic. 

As  already  hinted,  errors  of  a  novel  and  amusing  character 
sometimes  find  their  way  into  the  manuscripts  of  the  brightest 
journalists,  owing,  mainly,  to  the  rush  and  hurry  incident  to 
their  work.  I  cite  the  following  sentence,  from  an  article 
relating  to  a  certain  cemetery,  which  appeared  (the  article,  not 
the  cemetery  itself,)  in  a  Boston  daily  with  which  I  was  con 
nected  at  the  time,  the  bull  being  no  less  amusing  because  it 
was  the  work  of  The  Editor  himself: 

Owing  to  a  disputed  title,  doubts  arose  as  to  the  permanence  of  the  ceme 
tery,  and  therefore  but  few  were  ever  interred  there,  many  of  whom  have 
since  been  exhumed  and  recommitted  to  the  earth  in  other  cemeteries. 

When  you  come  to  subtract  many  from  a  few,  all  your 
mathematical  skill  must  be  called  into  requisition  to  give  even 
an  approximate  idea  of  how  many  are  left. 

A  companion  to  this  is  the  following  paragraph,  taken  from 
an  Associated  Press  dispatch  from  New  Orleans,  relating  to  the 
sinking  of  the  steamer  Empire : 

Several  passengers  left  the  boat  upon  her  arrival,  otherwise  the  loss  of 
life  would  have  been  very  large.  As  it  is,  eighteen  passengers  and  many 
of  the  crew  are  believed  to  be  drowned. 


THE  REPORTERS.  23 

According  to  this,  the  fact  that  "several"  (a  few)  passengers 
had  left  the  boat,  prevented  a  "large"  loss  of  life.  The 
second  sentence,  following  the  first,  sounds  very  odd,  too. 
"As  it  is"  (any  large  loss  of  life  having  been  averted  by  the 
escape  of  a  few  passengers),  "eighteen  passengers  and  many 
of  the  crew  are  believed  to  be  drowned."  If  this  was  not  a 
"large"  loss  of  life,  notwithstanding  the  escape  of  "several" 
passengers,  what  would  be  considered  a  large  loss  of  life  ?  In 
this  bull,  however,  ridiculous  as  it  looks,  I  see  only  evidence  of 
the  haste  with  which  the  man  who  sent  the  dispatch  had  to  do 
his  work.  It  was  late  at  night,  too,  and  I  suppose  that  few 
news  editors  detected  the  singular  defects  of  diction,  or  made 
any  alterations  in  it. 

The  following  paragraph  is  from  a  leading  London  paper : 

In  a  dilapidated  house  in  a  narrow  by-way,  at  the  back  of  the  Refuge 
in  Newport-market,  lived  a  man  named  John  Bishop,  who  had  been  living 
for  some  time  past  with  a  woman  named  Ford  in  the  second  floor  back. 
Bishop  had  lately  been  in  the  receipt  of  decent  wages,  and  at  times  was 
addicted  to  drink.  On  Saturday  night  he  returned  home  with  about  I/.  13^. 
6d.  It  is  said  he  left  his  money  on  the  mantel-shelf,  and  returning  a  short 
time  afterward,  missed  a  sovereign.  He  complained  of  his  loss  fa  deceased) 
but  she  denied  having  seen  it. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  down  to  where  the  word  "deceased  " 
occurs  there  is  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  a  murder  or  a  violent 
death  of  any  kind,  nor  any  hint  as  to  which  of  the  persons 
spoken  of  had  so  suddenly  become  "deceased."  A  person 
having  read  this  much  of  the  article  might  begin  to  wonder 
what  the  reporter  was  talking  about.  The  account,  however, 
goes  on  to  state  in  detail  that,  after  some  quarreling,  Bishop 
murdered  the  woman.  The  writer  had  the  idea  in  his  own 
head  all  straight  enough,  but  allowed  his  thoughts  to  outrun 
his  pen ;  hence,  he  unconsciously  obliged  the  readers  of  the 
paper  to  take  something  for  granted  merely  because  he  knew  it 


24  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

himself,  and  the  result  was  somewhat  novel.  I  can  readily  see 
how  it  might  occur,  and  how  it  occasionally  does  occur,  even 
with  practiced  writers.  Such  a  lack  of  clearness,  though,  is  the 
exception  rather  than  the  rule  in  the  writings  of  the  most  pro 
ficient  journalists. 

Here  is  another  curious  paragraph,  also  from  a  London  daily 
paper  : 

The  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Edinburgh  left  Balmoral  Castle  on  Monday 
morning,  and  traveled  by  special  train  to  Aberdeen,  where  they  arrived  at 
12  o'clock.  After  a  brief  stay,  the  Duke  and  Duchess  left  by  the  12.23 
mail  train  for  London. 

Here  we  are  told  that  the  Duke  and  Duchess  arrived  at  Aber 
deen  at  12  o'clock,  and  that,  "after  a  brief  stay,"  they  left  just 
twenty-three  minutes  later.  How  could  their  stay  have  been 
otherwise  than  brief,  if  they  arrived  at  12  and  departed  at  12.23  ? 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  by  what  means  their  Royal  Highnesses 
could  have  stayed  a  day  or  two,  or  even  a  few  hours,  in  Aber 
deen,  within  the  space  of  twenty-three  minutes — unless,  indeed, 
they  possessed  the  power  which  Milton  ascribes  to  the  Almighty 
to  "crowd  eternity  into  an  hour,  or  stretch  an  hour  into  eter 
nity." 

Accuracy  is  important  in  reporting,  if  reporting  itself  is  of 
any  importance,  but  it  is  not  always  strictly  observed  by  a 
certain  class  of  careless  reporters  or  compilers  of  news  para 
graphs.  For  example,  almost  every  day  something  like  this 
may  be  read  in  our  daily  newspapers : 

John  Brown,  a  well-known  citizen  of  Binghamton,  was  instantly  killed, 
on  Thursday,  by  being  thrown  from  his  horse. 

Very  good,  so  far  as  it  goes ;  but  where  did  the  accident 
happen  ?  It  might  have  been  in  Hong  Kong,  in  Melbourne, 
or  Constantinople,  or  in  Palestine,  so  far  as  the  information 


THE  REPORTERS.  25 

goes ;  for  although  it  is  stated  that  Mr.  Brown  was  a  citizen  of 
Binghamton,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  was  killed  there. 
Probably,  in  such  a  case,  the  accident  did  happen  in  or  near 
Binghamton,  and  it  is  left  to  be  taken  for  granted ;  but  as  the 
Browns  do  not  remain  at  home  all  their  lives,  and  in  fact  are 
even  proverbial  for  their  rambling  disposition,  the  writer  should 
have  said,  "in  that  city,"  or  "near  that  city,"  as  the  case 
may  have  been. 

There  is  lying  before  me  a  most  carefully-conducted  Phila 
delphia  paper,  and,  although  I  am  certainly  not  on  the  look-out 
for  something  to  carp  at,  one  of  the  first  of  its  local  paragraphs 
to  catch  my  eye  is  this : 

SHOCKING  ACCIDENT.  —  George  Drake,  aged  33  years,  had  his  left  arm 
torn  oft"  at  the  elbow  by  having  it  caught  in  a  belt  at  McCallum's  mill. 

If  this  is  news  worth   publishing  at  all  —  and  I  have  no 

doubt  it  is  —  it  should  surely  have  been  stated  when  and  where 
the  accident  occurred.  Both  these  essential  points  have  been 
overlooked  by  the  reporter,  probably  through  the  usual  hurry ; 
and  the  reader  is  left  in  the  dark  as  to  whether  the  accident 
occurred  yesterday,  last  week,  or  last  year;  also  as  to  the  location 
of  McCallum's  mill.  True,  it  may  be  inferred,  from  the  fact 
that  the  paragraph  is  found  in  the  local  columns,  that  the  mill 
is  somewhere  in  or  near  Philadephia ;  but  in  what  quarter  ?  in 
what  ward  ?  near  the  junction  of  what  two  principal  streets  of 
that  widely-extended  city?  All  this  the  reporter  allows  to 
remain  a  mystery,  and  the  reader — like  a  person  who  is  told 
but  half  a  secret  —  feels  that  he  would  rather  have  known 
nothing  whatever  of  the  story,  if  he  cannot  know  the  whole. 

I  should  make  this  chapter  too  long  if  I  should  refer  at  length 
to  all  the  blunders  and  solecisms,  of  various  grades  of  enormity, 
that  are  daily  noticeable  in  the  public  press.     As  I  am  desirous, 
3 


26  SECKETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

then,  that  my  labors  shall  result  in  "  the  greatest  good  to  the 
greatest  number,"  (including  number  one,)  I  will,  as  succinctly 
as  possible,  give  some  advice  to  the  green  or  careless  reporter. 

Young  man,  never  say  "  a  Mr.  John  Smith,"  or  "  one 
John  Smith,"  as  no  one  will  make  the  mistake  of  supposing 
that  John  is  more  than  one  person.  Plurality  will  not  be  even 
suspected  when  the  name  is  so  singular. 

Never  say  "  lower  down  "  or  "  higher  up,"  because  an  object 
could  not  be  very  low  up  or  high  down. 

Never  say  "a  few  moments,"  when  you  mean  a  few  minutes, 
because  a  moment  is  an  indefinite  amount  of  time,  however 
small.  You  might  as  well  say  "a  mass  of  coal,  about  the  size 
of  five  lumps  of  chalk."  Our  language  is  rich  in  clear  words 
and  expressions,  and  a  fair  idea  of  a  small  amount  of  time  may 
always  be  conveyed  by  some  such  term  as  "a  second,"  "  a  few 
seconds,"  "  half  a  minute,"  or  "a  few  minutes,"  as  facts  may 
warrant. 

Never  say  "full  complement."  The  latter  word  alone 
means  "  full  quantity,"  and  the  tautology  in  the  former  expres 
sion  would  be  just  about  evenly  matched  with  that  in  such  a 
term  as  " a  white  white  house  "  or  "a  red  red  head."  A  man 
who  would  say  "  full  complement,"  deserves  no  compliment 
at  all. 

Never  commence  a  report  of  a  homicide  in  the  suburbs  by 
saying:  "The  quiet  village  of  Cabbageville  was  startled  and 
thrown  into  an  intense  state  of  feverish  excitement  by  one  of 
the  most  diabolical,"  etc.  It's  too  horrible.  Keep  cool,  and 
don't  get  your  nerves  worked  up  to  any  such  a  pitch.  Be  calm, 
and  relate  the  mournful  tale  in  fewer  and  milder  words.  Yet 
there  are  reporters  who  do  begin  an  account  of  a  murder  in 
just  such  words  as  the  above. 

Never  say  "insane  asylum,"  because,  whatever  maybe  the 


THE   REPORTERS.  2/ 

mental  condition  of  the  inmates,  the  building  itself  is  usually  in 
its  right  mind,  and  has  seldom  been  known  to  commit  even  an 
error  of  judgment.  Say  "  lunatic  asylum,"  or  "asylum  for 
the  insane." 

Don't  say  that  a  man  was  "executed,"  when  he  was  merely 
hanged  (for  some  such  little  hereditary  eccentricity  as  murdering 
his  father,  for  instance).  The  sheriff  did  execute  the  sentence  of 
death,  but  he  only  hanged  the  culprit.  He  did  not  execute  him. 
You  might  as  well  say,  when  he  takes  a  convict  to  the  State 
Prison,  that  he  "executes"  him  into  the  hands  of  the  warden. 
In  both  cases  it  is  merely  the  sentence  that  is  executed.  Never 
theless,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  "  usage,"  that  loose  and  careless 
teacher  of  language,  has  recognized  this  application  of  the  term 
"execute"  in  cases  of  hanging  (or  beheading).  Webster 
himself  gives  it  a  mild  sanction ;  while  we  also  find  in  Shake 
speare  (Richard  III.,  Act  V.,  Scene  3): 

Lest  being  seen, 

Thy  brother,  tender  George,  be  executed. 

Richard  Grant  White,  the  eminent  philologist,  however, 
deprecates  the  use  of  the  word  "execute  "  in  this  connection. 

Use  plain  language.  Don't  affect  Latin  or  French,  or  words 
and  phrases  from  any  foreign  or  dead  language. 

Don't  go  out  of  your  way  to  hunt  up  rare  words.  Make  rare 
words  rarer  still  by  using  only  words  often  used  and  well  under 
stood  by  all  who  read. 

If  you  speak  of  a  dog,  call  it  "a  dog ;  "  do  not  say  a  "mam 
mal  of  the  genus  canis"  To  reiterate  an  old  precept,  "call  a 
spade  a  spade,"  not  "a  metallic  agricultural  implement  for  dis 
placing  and  rearranging  the  soil." 

Be  not  too  positive  in  making  your  statements,  especially 
when,  by  possible  inaccuracy,  they  may  unjustly  work  to  the 


28  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

prejudice  of  any  person,  society,  or  institution.  When  there  is 
the  slightest  room  for  doubt  that  a  certain  person  did  a  certain 
discreditable  thing,  of  which  it  becomes  necessary  to  make  any 
report  at  all,  do  not  say  he  did  it;  say  it  is  "reported,"  "al 
leged,"  "charged,"  or  something  of  that  noncommittal  nature. 
This  careful  course  would  be  dictated  by  a  simple  sense  of  jus 
tice,  even  if  there  were  no  laws  against  libel,  because  many 
persons  are  suspected  and  charged  with  offences,  arrested,  and 
afterward  found  to  be  entirely  innocent.  I  have  a  paper  before 
me  which  gives  a  man's  name,  and  says  he  "was  arrested  yes 
terday/^  stealing  a  blanket."  This  is  saying,  in  effect,  that 
he  did  steal  it  —  an  assertion  that  no  paper  has  a  right  to  make 
before  a  man  has  been  tried  and  convicted  of  the  alleged  offence* 
The  reporter  should  have  said  that  the  man  was  arrested  "  on  a 
charge  of,"  or  "charged  with,"  stealing  a  blanket. 

Don't  always  be  on  the  alert  to  be  witty  or  droll,  and  don't 
constantly  drag  in  far-fetched  puns  or  outlandish  and  unusual 
expressions.  A  reporter  is  not  employed  as  a  humorist ;  cer 
tainly  he  is  not  in  every  case  born  one ;  and  as  certainly  he  can 
never  make  himself  one.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  good  pun, 
and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  real  wit ;  but  both  must  be  sponta 
neous.  No  straining.  A  donkey  might  as  well  try  to  make  his 
bray  sound  like  the  roar  of  a  lion  by  straining  his  voice. 

I  think  I  heard  a  legitimate  pun  once,  on  board  of  a  steamer 
running  between  San  Francisco  and  Panama,  and  I  am  sure  it 
was  spontaneous.  Several  passengers  were  discussing  the  prob 
able  nationality  of  a  very  tall  and  slim  foreign  lady  who  "put 
on"  unusual  "airs,"  and  who,  it  was  said,  represented  herself 
as  belonging  to  a  titled  family.  "  I  think  she  is  a  Swede,"  said 
one.  "A  Russian,  more  likely,"  ventured  another,  "/should 
gay,"  remarked  a  waggish  fellow  of  the  group,  "that  she  looks 
more  like 


THE  CITY  EDITOR.  29 

Young  man,  don't  use  the  editorial  "we."  No  reporter  on 
a  first-class  daily  thinks  of  doing  so ;  nor  would  it  be  allowed, 
if  he  did.  The  reporter  is  a  news-gatherer,  not  an  editor,  and 
must  give  no  opinions,  although  his  position,  if  he  fills  it  cred 
itably,  is  a  very  honorable  one.  He  must  not  say :  "  We  learn 
that,"  etc.  He  will  find  ample  scope  of  expression  in  such 
phrases  as,  "It  is  reported,"  "it  is  understood,"  "it  is  said," 
"it  is  rumored,"  "it  is  thought,"  etc.,  according  to  the 
strength  which  the  statement  may  be  allowed  to  assume. 

I  have  thus  referred  briefly  to  the  shortcomings  of  many 
careless  or  inefficient  reporters ;  and  while  I  urge  accuracy  and 
directness  of  language,  I  should  regret  to  be  understood  as 
being  captious  or  exacting ;  nor  do  I  claim  that  I  myself  should 
ever  be  so  rigorous  in  the  matter  of  accuracy  as  a  certain 
"country  editor,"  who  thus  quoted  two  lines  of  a  hymn  sung 
at  a  funeral  he  reported  : 

Ten  thousand  thousand  (10,000,000)  are  their  tongues, 
But  all  their  joys  are  one  (i). 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  CITY  EDITOR. 

"XT  EWSPAPER  men  know  well  enough  what  reporters  have 
-L  II  to  do,  and  how  they  do  it ;  but  few  persons  outside  the 
fraternity  have  any  very  clear  idea  of  the  inside  workings  of 
this  or  any  other  branch  of  journalism.  As  thousands  of  the 
readers  of  books  and  newspapers  have  never  been  inside  of  a 
newspaper  office,  a  brief  description  of  the  rooms  of  the  City 
Editor  of  a  first-class  daily  newspaper  in  a  large  city  will  here 
3* 


3O  SECKETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

be  entirely  in  place.  With  this  view,  I  cannot  do  better  than 
to  quote  from  a  sketch  that  appeared  in  Packard'  's  Monthly  a 
few  years  ago  —  Mr.  S.  S.  Packard,  the  publisher,  at  present 
conducting  Packard's  Business  College,  in  New  York,  having 
kindly  given  me  permission  to  do  so.  The  sketch  from  which 
I  quote  was  one  of  a  series  written  for  Packard's  Monthly  by 
Mr,  Amos  J.  Cummings,  a  member  of  the  New  York  Tribune's 
editorial  staff,  and  in  which  he  gives  very  graphic  descriptions 
©f  the  whole  machinery  of  the  Tribune,  which  may  well  be 
taken  as  a  pattern  of  American  daily  newspapers.  The  follow 
ing  is  Mr,  Cummings's  description  of  the  City  Editor's  room,  in 
which  the  reporters  receive  their  assignments  to  duty  and  daily 
return  the  results  of  their  labors  \ 

The  walls  are  covered  with  maps.  A  perpendicular  viaduct,  for  commu 
nication  between  the  counting-,  editorial-,  and  composing-rooms,  with 
speaking-pipes,  copy-boxes,  and  bells,  runs  from  the  low  ceiling  through 
the  Center  of  the  room,  like  the  succulent  branch  of  a  banyan  tree.  A 
Small  library  of  books  relating  to  city  affairs  leans  against  the  viaduct.  A 
water-pail  and  a  tin  jar  of  ice-water  occupy  one  corner  of  the  room.  Paste- 
pots  and  inkstands  are  scattered  over  the  desks  in  lazy  confusion.  Bits  of 
blotting-paper  and  scores  of  rusty-looking  steel  pens  are  strewn  about  the 
tables.  A  dozen  reporters  are  seated  at  a  dozen  small  green  desks.  Some 
are  Writing,  a  few  are  reading,  and  two  are  smoking  briarwood  pipes.  The 
City  Editor  arrives  at  the  office  at  Id  A<  M,,  and  immediately  overhauls  the 
morning  papers,  reading  the  advertisements  with  special  care.  Every  an 
nouncement  of  a  political  meeting,  lecture,  horse-race,  excursion,  real  estate 
sale,  execution,  hotel-opening,  steamboat-launch,  etc.,  is  clipped  out  and 
pasted  in  a  blank  book,  At  noon  the  reporters  enter,  and  copy  their  assign* 
inents  from  the  book,  drawing  a  line  under  each  of  their  names,  to  assure 
the  City  Editor  that  they  are  aware  of  their  detail  and  will  attend  to  it. 
Look  at  the  book,  and  yeu  will  find  such  entries  as  these  : 


John  Allen's  Prayer-Meeting,  Water  Street,  19  y. 
American  Geographical  Society,  Historical  Society  Rooms,  Second  Avenue  and  Eleventh 
Street,  8  p.  M.  —  Meeker. 

Grant  and  Colfax  Meeting,  Broadway  and  Twenty-Second  Street,  8  p.  M.  —  Armani. 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL  WORK.  -   $1 

Dog-fight  at  Kit  Burtis's,  Water  Street,  g  P.  M.  —  Mix. 
Special  service.  — Gilbert. 

See  Longstreet,  and  have  an  interview  with  him  at  New  York  Hotel ;  make  a  column.  — 
Gedney. 

Police  headquarters.  — Morey. 
Jefferson  Market  Police  Court.  — Mix. 
A  two-column  article  on  Local  Nominations.  — McGrett), 

Such  Is  a  brief  extract  from  a  description  of  the  City  Editor's 
rooms  in  the  office  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  They  are  nearly 
the  same  in  every  large  daily  newspaper  establishment  in  this 
country. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL  WORK. 

THE  reporter's  life  is  not  an  easy  one.  There  could  be  no 
greater  misconception  of  it  than  a  belief  that  its  duties  are 
light.  The  Reporter  has  much  hard  and  irksome  labor  to  do  ', 
he  must  often  work  beyond  the  time  at  which  he  sadly  needs 
rest  or  refreshment ;  he  must  do  mental  work  requiring  careful 
attention  in  noisy  assemblages,  often  through  the  long  hours 
of  the  night ;  and  is  nearly  always  sO  hurried,  so  pressed  for 
every  minute  of  his  time,  that  it  is  not  strange  if  the  brain  is 
thrown  into  a  state  of  confusion  that  wastes  it  too  rapidly 
away,  There  is  very  little  work  done  on  a  daily  newspaper 
that  is  not  done  hurriedly  —  very  little  that  could  be  delayed 
for  a  mere  matter  of  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  The  editors, 
reporters,  proof-readers,  compositors,  pressmen,  folders  and 
mailers  all  have  to  work  pretty  close  to  time.  A  delay  of  five 
minutes  is  often  a  serious  matter,  This  may  readily  be  believed 
when  it  is  stated  that  a  large  morning  paper,  such  as  the  New 
York  Herald,  contains  as  much  matter  as  a  volume  the  size  of 


32  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

this  work,  and  each  issue  of  the  paper  must  spring  up  into  exist 
ence  in  a  night. 

Most  of  the  reporters  on  a  morning  paper  work  at  night, 
straining  their  eyes  in  dimly-lighted  places  and  vexing  the 
brain  with  labor  during  unnatural  hours.  They  must  sit  in 
crowded  halls,  and,  while  they  write  with  the  rapidity  of  light 
ning,  listen  intently  to  catch  each  word  of  a  wheezy-voiced 
orator,  sometimes  at  noisy  and  tumultuous  political  meetings, 
sometimes  amid  the  uproar  and  -  confusion  incident  to  a 
"stormy"  session  of  a  "deliberative"  body. 

I  cannot  make  this  work  what  I  think  it  should  be  without 
frequently  referring  to  my  own  experience  in  journalism,  and  I 
trust  that  the  generous  critic  and  the  generous  public  will 
exempt  me  from  the  imputation  of  deliberate  egotism.  Most 
experienced  editors  will  bear  me  out  in  the  assertion  that  if  any 
young  journalist  is  disposed  to  "think  more  highly  of  himself 
than  he  ought  to  think,"  a  few  years  of  thorough  training  will 
teach  him  better.  I  know  of  no  vocation  in  the  pursuit  of 
which  a  man  so  soon  finds  out  how  unimportant  he  is  in  the 
wide  world.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  few  persons  ever  reach  pro 
ficiency  in  the  profession  until  they  have  "had  the  conceit 
taken  out  of  them." 

To  proceed  :  It  once  became  my  province  to  report  the  pro 
ceedings  of  "the  most  numerous  branch"  of  a  certain  State 
Legislature,  in  which,  while  it  embraced  a  number  of  able  men, 
the  rural  element  was  largely  represented.  The  Speaker  him 
self,  selected  on  account  of  his  influence,  was  a  leading  politi 
cian  in  a  small  city,  and,  I  believe,  a  courteous  gentleman,  as 
regarded  his  private  life ;  but  he  was  not  a  finished  parliamen 
tarian,  unaccustomed  to  positions  of  mark,  and  failed  to  pre 
side  over  the  deliberations  of  "the  House"  with  the  calm 
demeanor,  the  stately  ease  and  grace  I  have  seen  exhibited  by 


CERTAIN  REPORTER1AL  WORK.  33 

the  presiding  officers  of  some  legislative  bodies.  There  are 
men  who  seem  to  have  been  born  to  preside  over  assemblages ; 
but  this  Mr.  Speaker  was  not  one  of  them.  He  was  not  calm ; 
he  was  not  serene ;  he  was  not  self-possessed ;  and  he  made 
many  —  I  have  to  say  it  —  blunders  which,  however  amusing  in 
a  general  way,  were  very  annoying  to  "us  reporters,"  whose 
duty  it  was  faithfully  to  record  the  proceedings.  For  exam- 
pie: 

A  gentleman  arises  to  address  "the  Chair;"  he  is  Mr. 
Miller,  the  member  from  Bedford ;  he  says : 

"Mr.  Speaker:  —  " 

It  is  now  the  duty  of  the  Speaker  to  "recognize"  him  in 
this  form : 

"The  gentleman  from  Bedford,  Mr.  Miller." 

Let  him  do  this  correctly  and  distinctly,  and  the  reporter  will 
proceed  to  write : 

"Mr.  Miller,  of  Bedford,  said  that  —  " 

But  our  Speaker,  owing  to  his  inexperience,  bashfulness  and 
general  unfitness  for  his  position,  finds  it  difficult  to  articulate 
the  words,  either  plainly  or  connectedly.  He  sputters  out : 

"The  gentleman  from  Miller,  Mr.  Bedford." 

The  reporter  does  not  know  Mr.  Miller,  and,  following  the 
confused  and  erring  Speaker,  proceeds  to  put  him  down  as 
"Mr.  Bedford,"  which  is  merely  the  name  of  the  town  he 
lives  in  —  without  the  "Mr." 

A  slight  smile  floats  over  a  portion  of  the  body  at  the 
,  Speaker's  mistake,  and  he,  becoming  more  confused  and  fright- 
I  fully  red  in  the  face,  stammers : 

"The  —  the— Mr. —  the  gentleman  from  Bedler,  Mr.  Mil- 
ford." 

The  smile  extends  like  contagion;  the  reporter  does  not 
know  what  to  write,  or  whether  to  write  anything  at  all  or  not, 

C 


34  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

and  the  Speaker,  whose  confusion  and  mortification  now  amount 
to  torture,  tries  it  again,  with  this  result : 

"The  gentleman  from  Midford,  Mr.  Beller." 

The  smile  of  the  amused  members  who  see  the  Speaker's 
blunder,  and  of  others  who  did  not  at  first  notice  it,  merges 
into  an  "audible  grin;  "  and  the  Speaker,  earnestly  wishing  that 
the  earth  would  open  and  swallow  him  up,  makes  one  more 
desperate  essay  to  announce  the  name  of  the  waiting  member, 
and  in  trembling  and  barely  intelligible  tones  stammers : 

"The  —  ah  —  I  would  say,  the  gentleman  from  Melford  — 
the  bentleman  from  Jilford — the  Mr.  from  Biddleford  —  the 
Middleford  —  the  bentle  —  the  Beddle  —  the  middle  —  the 
meddle  —  the  — ' ' 

By  this  time  the  House  is  in  an  uproar,  and  bursts  of  laughter, 
with  no  further  attempt  to  restrain  them,  roll  out  like  they  do 
in  the  audience  of  a  minstrel  show  when  the  comic  part  is  at  its 
height ;  the  Clerk  gets  up  and  whispers  to  the  Speaker,  who 
finally  manages  to  "recognize  "  the  member  from  Bedford  ;  but 
the  reporter  must  have  remained  very  attentive  during  the  con 
fusion,  if  he  has  succeeded  in  correctly  understanding  and 
recording  the  name  of  "Mr.  Miller,  of  Bedford."  If  he  has 
failed,  he  has  no  time  now  to  ask  the  Clerk  near  whom  he  sits, 
(but  will  try  to  think  of  it  before  sending  his  manuscript  to  the 
office),  for  he  must  proceed,  as  the  confusion  subsides,  to  take 
down  every  word  uttered  by  "the  gentleman  from  Bedford,  Mr. 
Miller." 

Another  scene  in  the  same  deliberative  body,  same  session, 
two  days  later  than  the  foregoing : 

But  let  me  preface  it  with  a  brief  explanation.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  session,  and  immediately  after  a  permanent 
organization,  each  member  has  assigned  to  him  a  seat  which  he 
shall  occupy  every  day  during  the  whole  session,  which  con- 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  35 

tributes  toward  making  things  smooth  and  orderly.  That  per 
fect  fairness  may  characterize  the  distribution  of  the  seats,  which 
are  all  numbered,  they  are  drawn  after  the  manner  of  a  lottery. 
There  are  in  the  House,  embracing  three  hundred  members, 
about  twenty  experienced  legislators,  who  will  be  supposed  to 
do  nearly  all  the  talking,  and,  in  a  manner,  "run  the  whole 
machine"  themselves,  while  the  green  members  sit  quietly  in 
their  seats,  listen  attentively,  vote  at  the  proper  times,  and  in 
what  their  leaders  teach  them  is  the  proper  manner,  but  rarely 
have  the  audacity  to  get  up  and  speak.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  mere  chance  would  give  the  twenty  "  smart  "  members  front 
seats,  near  the  Speaker's  desk,  where,  of  course,  they  earnestly 
desire  to  be.  Some  happen  to  get  back  seats,  but  they  don't 
keep  them  long.  They  go  and  speak  pleasantly  to  a  corre 
sponding  number  of  green  ones  who  have  had  the  luck  to  draw 
front  seats,  and,  by  representing  that  their  hearing  is  imperfect, 
that  their  eyesight  is  bad,  and  that  they  each  have  fifteen  or 
twenty  bills  to  introduce  and  advocate  in  long  speeches,  contrive 
to  "swap"  with  the  lucky  green  ones,  who  "take  back  seats," 
where,  after  all,  they  can  vote  just  as  vigorously  as  they  could 
near  the  Speaker's  stand.  So,  on  the  second  day,  you  see  all 
the  "  old  stagers  "  ranged  along  on  the  front  row  of  seats,  a  few 
perhaps  as  far  back  as  the  second  row  —  then  all  is  well. 

The  obscure  members,  as  before  intimated,  do  not  often 
address  the  Chair,  but  sometimes  they  do.  On  such  occasions 
the  Speaker  is  more  than  usually  confused,  and  so  is  the 
reporter.  The  green  member,  when  he  becomes  so  daring  as 
to  attempt  to  offer  some  remarks,  arises  from  his  seat  away  back 
at  the  farther  side  of  the -Hall  of  Representatives,  a  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  distant,  and,  "unaccustomed  as  he  is  to  public 
speaking,"  (I  can't  help  it!)  says,  "Mr.  Speaker,"  in  a  faint 
voice,  compared  with  which  an  ordinary  whisper  would  sound 


36  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

like  a  clap  of  thunder.  Indeed,  so  puny  is  the  voice  that  we 
involuntarily  get  the  notion  that  he  is  about  to  utter  his  dying 
words.  The  Speaker  is  confused  —  in  the  first  place,  not  so 
much  by  getting  the  country  member's  name  intermingled  with 
his  residence,  as  by  the  fact  that  he  does  n't  know  him  at  all  — 
doesn't  remember  that  he  ever  saw  him  in  his  life,  or  ever 
heard  of  him,  and  certainly  has  not  the  remotest  idea  as  to 
where  he  lives.  Nevertheless,  while  an  awful  presentiment  of 
evil  overshadows  his  soul,  he  bravely  begins : 

"The  gentleman  from — " 

Then  he  looks  appeal  ingly  at  several  well- posted  members  — 
those  old  stagers — in  the  front  seats.  There  is  a  general 
turning  of  heads  and  a  concerted  staring  at  the  country  member, 
who,  appalled  at  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  finding  himself 
"  the  observed  of  all  observers,"  stands  pale  as  a  ghost,  waiting 
to  be  "  recognized."  None  of  the  members  near  the  Speaker's 
stand  happen  to  know  him,  and  they,  together  with  the  whole 
House,  only  keep  on  staring  at  him. 

Things  are  becoming  painful.  There  is  a  moment  of  awful 
silence.  Presently  there  is  a  slight  movement  among  the  other 
country  members  in  the  vicinity  of  the  distant  country  member 
who  has  dared  to  arise  for  the  purpose  of  "making  a  few 
remarks;"  a  gentle  murmur,  like  the  faint  sound  of  the 
breakers  on  the  distant  sea-shore ;  heads  turn  to  and  fro,  and 
shake  and  nod  fantastically ;  and  the  name  and  residence  of 
the  member,  obtained  from  his  own  lips,  begin  to  pass  from 
mouth  to  mouth  in  the  direction  of  the  Speaker's  desk,  slowly, 
painfully,  over  the  heads  of  numerous  members,  till  at  last  they 
reach  the  Chair.  The  country  member  is  Mr.  Brown,  of  Cobb- 
ville ;  but,  of  course,  by  the  time  his  name  and  residence  reach 
the  Speaker  they  become  "Mr.  Cowan,  of  Bobbington,"  and 
the  Speaker,  after  the  usual  agony,  succeeds  in  announcing  him 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  37 

as  "the  gentleman  from  Carrington,  Mr.  Bobbins."  There 
upon  the  statesman  from  Cobbville  proceeds  with  his  remarks 
in  low,  tremulous  tones,  and  here  is  what  the  reporter  hears  : 

"  I  do  no  oo  ah  foo  ow  noo  ore  bore  air  o  no  to  jo  ih  bo  eh 
so  high  ugh  for  no  go." 

The  Speaker  also  listens  attentively,  but  of  course  understands 
about  as  much  of  what  Mr.  Brown  says  as  the  reporter  does. 
The  speech  is  not  lengthy,  and  the  reporter  does  the  best  he  can 
for  Mr.  Brown,  and  for  his  paper,  and  for  the  Commonwealth, 
by  writing : 

Mr.  Bobbins,  of  Carrington,  made  some  remarks  with  reference  to  the 
amendment  in  question,  in  the  course  of  which  he  suggested  that  careful 
attention  should  be  given  to  the  subject  before  definite  action  be  taken. 

Now  comes  some  fun.  When  Mr.  Brown,  of  Cobbville  (erro 
neously  announced  as  "the  gentleman  from  Carrington,  Mr. 
Bobbins  "),  has  finished,  a  waggish  member,  a  very  able  lawyer, 
arises  with  a  merry  twinkle  barely  visible  in  his  eye,  and  says  : 

"Mr.  Speaker:—" 

Much  to  the  reporter's  astonishment,  the  Speaker  succeeds, 
in  the  first  attempt,  in  properly  recognizing  him  as  "  the  gen 
tleman  from  Hampden,  Mr.  Edington." 

The  reporter,  somewhat  reassured,  writes : 

"Mr.  Edington,  of  Hampden,  said:  — " 

[That  gentleman  proceeds,  in  the  most  penetrating  tones :] 

"  I  can — not  reconcile  my  views  with  those  so  ably  expressed 
by  the  gentleman  from  Carrington."  [Of  course,  like  the 
Speaker  and  reporter,  he  has  not  heard  one  word  of  Mr. 
Brown's  remarks.]  "I  could  never  question  the  purity  of  his 
motives,  for  I  believe  him  to  be  one  of  the  best  and  most 
patriotic  members  of  this  body.  Coming  from  the  beautiful 
town  of  Carrington,"  [there  is  no  such  town  in  the  State,  and 
Mr.  Edington  knows  it,]  "a  town  in  whose  sweet  mountain 
4 


38  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

air  I  have  breathed  many  a  delightful  summer  breath,  he 
brings  with  him  to  this  hall  the  very  fragrance  of  sincerity  and 
truth.  Yet,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  —  however  hard  I  may  try 
—  succeed  in  bringing  my  mind  to  the  same  view  he  takes  of 
this  important  matter;  and  I  do  believe,  Mr.  Speaker,  that, 
after  maturer  thought  on  the  subject,  after  a  more  deep  and 
careful  penetration  of  its  many  intricacies,  his  candor  will  in 
duce  him  to  admit  that,  if  the  course  he  at  present  advocates 
should  prevail,  it  would  in  the  end  prove  prejudicial  to  the 
truest  interests  of  the  Commonwealth." 

Mr.  Brown,  of  Cobbville,  is  of  course  very  much  delighted 
at  the  marked  attention  he  has  received  at  the  hand  of  the 
eminent  Hampden  lawyer,  and  subsides  into  a  dreamy  silence, 
from  which  he  will  probably  no  more  issue  during  the  session. 

The  Speaker  of  a  "  House"  has  it  in  his  power  to  worry  the 
reporter  very  much,  and  often  does  so  —  of  course,  without  in 
tending  to  —  by  the  manner  in  which  he  rushes  through  his 
routine  work,  such  as  reading  notices  of  bills,  reports  of  com 
mittees,  etc.  Some  Speakers,  with  glib  tongues,  fly  over  these 
forms  with  a  rapidity  that  sets  the  reporter's  brain  in  a  whirl, 
and  often  defies  the  skill  of  the  most  skillful.  Notices  of  bills, 
for  example,  are  sometimes  read  off  so  rapidly  that  the  Speaker 
appears  to  commence  each  word  before  he  has  finished  pronounc 
ing  its  predecessor ;  and  here  is  about  what  the  reporter  hears : 

"  Meer  Smis  Sissfeel  giz  notes  zat  he  ill  'n  t'mars  um  foosh  day  int'oose 
bill  tiled  nack  t'mend  nack  mentery  secon  leven  chaper  th'  nine  shen'l 
statutes  rel'v  vation  game." 

Here  is  what  he  ought  to  hear  : 

"  Mr.  Smith,  of  Smithfield,  gives  notice  that  he  will,  on  to-morrow,  or 
some  future  day,  introduce  a  bill,  entitled,  An  Act  to  Amend  an  Act 
Amendatory  of  Section  Eleven,  Chapter  Thirty-nine,  of  the  General  Stat 
utes,  relative  to  the  Preservation  of  Game." 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  39 

Reporters  are  only  mortal ;  and,  although  they  plod  along 
patiently  through  their  many  tedious  hours  of  exhausting  work, 
they  are  occasionally  guilty  of  shortcomings  that  evoke  stirring 
anathemas,  or,  at  the  very  least,  diabolical  scowls  from  the  City 
Editor  or  the  Managing  Editor,  as  the  case  may  be.  I  once 
knew  a  generally  prompt  and  faithful  reporter,  who  was  sent  to 
bring  back  an  account  of  a  very  important  matter,  and  who 
became  irritated  in  his  pursuit  of  information  and  came  back 
to  the  office  without  a  line,  when  a  column  and  a  half  of  mat 
ter  was  expected.  He  told  the  City  Editor  how  it  was,  and 
added : 

"I  suppose  you'll  give  me  notice  to  quit;  but  I  don't  care 
a  d — n.  I  'm  disgusted  with  the  business  !  " 

But  the  City  Editor  knew  that  he  only  had  a  fit  of  the  blues, 
which  would  probably  disappear  by  the  next  morning,  not  to 
return  again  for  a  year,  if  ever,  and  could  not  have  been  in 
duced  to  part  with  him. 

One  summer  morning  —  let  us  say  about  twenty  years  ago  — 
I  was  sent  to  report  an  "  open-air"  celebration  at  a  place  about 

twenty  miles  from  the  little  New  England  city  of  S ,  in 

which  I  was  employed  as  a  reporter  on  the  Journal,  one  of  the 
two  daily  evening  papers  published  there.  The  other  daily  — 
the  Press  —  employed  a  reporter  formerly  of  New  York,  a  very 

genial  fellow,  Mr.  M .     The  Managing  Editor,  Mr.  D , 

told  me  he  desired  a  very  full  report,  and  I  promised,  and 
certainly  intended,  to  give  it. 

Arriving  at  the  ground  by  excursion  train,  we  found,  in  front 
of  the  only  house  in  that  vicinity,  a  rude  platform  to  accommo 
date  the  orators  and  others  connected  with  the  ceremonies  of 
the  occasion,  and  near  it  an  ordinary  table,  for  the  use  of  re 
porters,  with  some  improvised  board  benches  around  it.  The 
table  stood  on  the  greensward,  and,  unluckily,  right  in  the 


40  SECKEl'S  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

broiling  sun  of  June,  while  a  tree  but  imperfectly  shaded  the 
orators'  platform. 
The  deficient  accommodations  for  reporters  greatly  discouraged 

M and  myself,  both  because  the  glare  of  the  sun  on  white 

or  yellow  paper  is  exceedingly  trying  to  the  eyes,  and  because 
it  is  considered  perilous  to  sit  still  with  the  hot  rays  of  that  orb 
beating  down  upon  the  top  of  the  head.  This  danger  is  much 
greater  in  the  case  of  a  person  accustomed  to  being  much  in 
doors,  and  unfamiliar  with  such  hardening  work  as  haying  or 
gathering  in  the  sheaves  of  grain.  We  remembered,  with  much 
concern,  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  plain  sunstroke ;  and 
both  of  us  had,  perhaps,  written  up  more  than  one  " fatal  case" 
of  that  kind.  The  subject  was  "nearest  the  hearts  of  both," 
or  at  least  in  our  heads,  for  I  was  about  to  offer  a  remark  rela 
tive  to  it,  when  M said  : 

"Well,  I  declare  !  Is  this  where  we  are  to  sit?"  And  he 
looked  anxiously  around,  hoping  against  hope  that  there  might 
be,  on  the  other  side  of  the  platform,  a  table  for  reporters  in 
the  cool,  sequestered  shade.  But  the  shade  was  not  so  seques 
tered  as  it  used  to  be ;  for  all  the  space  protected  from  the  sun 
by  the  spreading  branches  of  the  "gnarled  oak"  — that's  the 
kind  of  tree  it  was  —  was  occupied  by  dense  masses  of  country 
people  who  had  flocked  to  the  celebration. 

"  It  seems  so,"  I  replied,  to  M 's  remark.     "  Right  in  the 

sun,  too." 

"In  the  sun,  but  not  right  in  it,"  he  rejoined. 

We  sat  down  by  the  table,  and  I  observed  that  he  looked 
very  grave,  particularly  during  the  prayer  with  which  the  cere 
monies  were  soon  afterward  opened.  When  it  was  concluded, 
some  brief  formalities  took  place;  then  an  "eminent  orator" 
was  introduced,  and  work  began  in  earnest.  There  were  at  the 
table  several  reporters  from  Boston,  of  course  representing 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  4! 

dailies  of  that  city;  and,  having  reverently  sharpened  their 
pencils  during  the  prayer,  and  got  their  note-books  in  trim, 
they  went  vigorously  at  their  task,  taking  down  everything 

"full."  M and  I  wrote  a  few  seconds  in  a  hesitating 

kind  of  way  ;  then  I  stopped  altogether,  and  whispered  : 

"  M ,  I  can't  stand  this." 

"  Neither  can  I,"  he  replied,  also  ceasing  to  write.  "What 
do  you  say  to  quit  ? ' ' 

"I  agree,"  I  replied,  while  the  orator  thundered  away  like 
the  paddle-wheels  of  a  very  large  steamer  going  at  full  speed. 
"  I  feel  that  it  would  really  endanger  my  life  to  sit  here  at  this 
work  for  two  or  three  hours." 

"And  I,  too.  I  was  overcome  with  the  heat  once,  while 
noting  a  Fourth-of-July  procession  in  New  York,  and  fainted. 
The  doctor  said  it  was  a  light  case  of  sunstroke,  and  that  I 
must  be  careful." 

"I  was  similarly  affected  one  hot  day  in  Philadelphia,"  I 
returned,  growing  more  and  more  alarmed. 

"  Come,  then,  let  us  go,"  he  said. 

"All  right." 

We  put  our  note-books  and  pencils  in  our  pockets,  arose  and 
elbowed  our  way  out  of  the  crowd.  We  saw  no  space  in  the 
shade  where  we  might  even  have  stood  and  endeavored  to  write, 
holding  the  note-book  in  the  left  hand ;  so,  we  gave  it  up 
altogether  and  walked  away  and  sat  down  among  the  fragrant 
clover  under  a  tree  about  a  hundred  yards  distant  from  the 
orators'  stand,  and  began  to  swallow  some  refreshments  which 
we  had  not  neglected  to  bring  with  us,  properly  packed, 
from  S . 

"I  wouldn't  kill  myself  in  the  hot  sun  for  any  paper,"  I 
remarked. 


42  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

"  Nor  I,"  he  replied.  "  Besides,  now  that  I  come  to  think 
of  it,  why  should  the  Journal  and  Press  want  it  reported  at 
all  ?  It  will  all  be  in  the  Boston  papers,  and  they  will  reach  us 
in  good  time  to-morrow  morning.  We  can  then  clip  it  bodily. ' ' 

"  Sure  enough.  We'd  be  a  couple  of  fools  (here,  take  a 
little  more  of  this)  to  sit  there  sweltering  like  those  Boston  fel 
lows.  They  're  doing  the  work  for  us,  in  a  manner.  I  really 
pity  them. ' ' 

"So  do  I." 

Sitting  in  the  blessed  shade  of  that  giant  oak,  with  the  sum 
mer  breeze  gently  fanning  us,  and  with  discreditably  frequent 
resorts  to  those  "refreshments,"  we  allowed  the  beautiful  sum 
mer  day  to  wear  away  in  sweet  forgetfulness,  while  we  steadily 
grew  more  and  more  indifferent  as  to  whether  there  was  either 
a  celebration  or  a  newspaper  in  the  world  or  not. 

By  and  by  we  rambled  awhile  in  adjacent  groves,  and  the 
voices  of  the  orators  died  away  in  the  distance.  Time  went 
by  unnoticed  —  and  so  did  the  three  o'clock  train,  by  which  we 

ought  to  have  returned  to  S with  our  reports.     This  we 

discovered  when  it  was  only  half  an  hour  too  late.  We  could 
now  do  nothing  but  wait  with  helpless  patience  for  the  seven 
o'clock  train,  which  we  safely  boarded,  and  which  landed  us 

in  S at  eight.     M and  I  then  parted,  and,  with  some 

unaccountable  misgivings,  I  went  to  the  Journal  office.  The 
Managing  Editor  had  long  since  been  home  to  dinner,  and 
returned  to  the  office,  where  he  impatiently  awaited  my 
arrival. 

"  Good  evening,"  I  said,  cheerfully. 

"Ah,  good  evening,"  he  replied,  with  less  animation  than  I 
had  exhibited.  "I  —  I  fully  expected  you  down  by  the  three 
o'clock  train." 

"Missed  it,"  said  I. 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  43 

He  was  perceptibly  vexed,  but  he  smothered  his  disappoint 
ment,  and  said  : 

"  Well,  I  'm  glad  you  're  here,  anyhow.  Better  late  than 
never.  Let  me  have  your  manuscript,  please,  as  I  want  to 
arrange  it  to  be  set  up  very  early  in  the  morning.  Three  of 
the  compositors  are  to  come  round  at  six  o'clock  for  that  pur 
pose,  as  to-morrow  will  be  a  busy  day,  and  we  must  get  the 
celebration  up  and  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  possible.  What 
kind  of  an  affair  was  it?  Pretty  grand?"  And  he  held  out 
his  hand  for  my  manuscript. 

"Why,  Mr.  D ,"  said  I,  "the  fact  is  — the  fact  is,  I 

haven't  any  report." 

"No  report?" 

"  No.  You  see,  the  table  for  reporters  was  in  the  sun,  and  I 
could  n't  write  there.  I  never  told  you  —  did  I  ? —  about  being 
sun-struck  in  Philadelphia  a  few  years  ago  ?  Besides,  I  thought 
it  would  all  be  in  the  Boston  papers  in  the  morning,  and  we 
might  clip  it  from  them.  There  were  eight  or  nine  Boston 
reporters  there." 

Mr.  D gazed  at  me  in  a  strange,  weird  way,  like  one  in 

a  dream,  then  deliberately  put  on  his  hat  and  left  the  editorial 
room,  muttering  a  horrible  oath  as  he  passed  through  the  door 
way,  leaving  me  standing  there  suffering  such  pangs  of  remorse 
that  I  fancied  a  moderately-easy  death  would  have  been  quite 
welcome. 

As  ill-luck  would  have  it,  the  Boston  papers  —  Boston  was 
sixty  or  seventy  miles  distant  —  were  an  hour  later  than  usual 
the  next  morning,  and  when  they  did  finally  come,  after  things 
had  been  working  backward  and  crosswise  all  the  morning,  I 
was  chagrined  to  discover  that  they  all  contained  only  the  most 
condensed  account  of  the  celebration.  So,  we  were  obliged  to 
patch  up  a  miserable  and  meager  account,  of  four  or  five  stick- 


44  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

fuls,  when,  being  so  near  the  scene  of  the  celebration,  we  ought 
to  have  had  two-and-a-half  columns.  I  felt  mean  for  a  month 
afterward,  during  which  time  I  found  it  one  of  the  hard  things 

of  this  life  to  look  Mr.  D squarely  in  the  face,  although  he 

had  probably  pardoned  my  delinquency  in  his  heart  within 
twenty-four  hours  after  it  occurred.  He  had  himself  been  a 
reporter  in  earlier  life,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  was 
personally  aware  of  the  manner  of  such  things.  He  died 
about  a  year  afterward,  and  when  I  was  called  upon  to  take  his 
place  as  Managing  Editor,  I  could  not  help  shuddering  at  the 
thought  that  his  suppressed  anger  at  not  getting  that  report 
might  have  hastened  his  death. 

I  cannot  follow  the  reporter  through  every  phase  of  his 
duties,  but  before  leaving  the  subject  I  will  say  that  long  and 
tedious  criminal  and  civil  trials  in  the  courts  are  among  the 
leading  things  that  severely  tax  his  brain.  I  have  more  than 
once  sat  in  the  court-room  for  four  hours  at  a  time,  during  some 
important  trial,  carefully  recording  every  word  uttered  by  judge, 
counsel  and  witnesses  —  the  words  often  pronounced  with  great 
rapidity,  or  in  a  low  and  almost  inaudible  voice,  or  in  poor 
English,  and  I  have  thought  that  there  was  nothing  more  irk 
some  or  exhausting  in  journalistic  life. 

There  are  sometimes  episodes  of  an  exciting  or  amusing 
nature  that  relieve  the  tedium,  and  the  reporter  usually  feels  a 
little  more  cheerful  after  them.  Of  course,  they  are  of  short 
duration.  There  must  "be  silence  in  court,"  even  if  the 
sheriff  or  tipstaff  has  to  scream  out  the  words  every  ten  seconds. 
In  cases  no  less  serious  than  murder  trials  there  is  an  occasional 
lively  tilt  between  lawyers,  or  between  a  cross-examining  lawyer 
and  a  cross-examined  witness,  in  which  sharp  sallies  and  keen 
retorts  are  followed  by  more  than  audible  laughter  —  which, 
however,  is  promptly  checked. 


CERTAIN  REPORTERIAL   WORK.  45 

I  once  reported  a  notable  murder  trial  in  a  large  city  on  the 
Atlantic  side  of  the  country,  in  which  an  eccentric  female  wit 
ness  created  much  merriment  by  her  droll  responses  to  the  inter 
rogatories  of  a  sharp  lawyer.  Several  times  the  "audience ' '  was 
fairly  convulsed  with  laughter;  and  even  the  murderer  himself, 
forgetting  his  little  troubles  for  the  moment,  was  once  or  twice 
highly  amused. 

The  woman  had  heard  certain  suspicious  sounds,  on  the  night 
of  the  murder,  in  a  building  adjacent  to  her  residence,  where 
the  crime  was  supposed  to  have  been  committed ;  and  the  coun 
sel  for  the  defense  wished  to  shake  her  testimony,  and  make  it 
apparent  that  at  the  time  in  question  she  was  in  a  state  of 
health  —  being  a  married  woman  —  that  might  have  rendered 
defective  her  faculty  of  receiving  impressions  correctly,  and  her 
memory  of  events  inaccurate  and  untrustworthy. 

He  put  a  question  to  her  on  this  point,  and  she  proved  her 
self  to  be  the  very  reverse  of  imbecile,  by  retorting  in  a  way 
that  nearly  extinguished  the  eminent  legal  gentleman  —  for  he 
was  a  man  of  wonderful  forensic  powers.  The  usual  hearty 
laugh  followed,  and  the  two  grave  judges  who  sat  on  the  bench 
themselves  joined  in  it  most  undisguisedly.  What  followed 
this  amused  me  more  than  the  woman's  witty  reply.  The 
sheriff  was  present,  and  had  already  once  or  twice  reproved  the 
spectators  for  exhibiting  mirth  in  the  court-room ;  and  he  now 
calmly  waited  till  "their  Honors"  had  got  done  laughing  and 
subsided  into  their  usual  gravity,  then  arose  with  a  severe 
frown  —  of  course,  he  was  not  supposed  to  know  that  the 
judges  had  so  much  as  smiled  —  turned  toward  the  spectators, 
and  with  much  sternness  said  : 

"Now,  look  here!  Just — as  —  sure  —  as  this  laughing  is 
repeated,  but  barely  once  more,  or  if  I  even  see  so  much  as  a 
grin,  or  hear  so  much  as  a  whisper  among  the  spectators,  I  shall 


46  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

clear  the  court-room  !  Mark  that  !  You  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  yourselves  !  I  would  like  to  see  any  one  here  dare  to  repeat 
such  conduct !  " 

He  resumed  his  seat,  and  there  was  no  more  laughing  in  the 
court-room  that  day  —  no,  not  even  by  "the  Court"  itself. 


CHAPTER   V. 

SLANG. 

THE  use  of  "slang"  words  and  phrases  has  become  so 
extensive  in  the  public  prints,  and  the  fact  is  so  much  to 
be  deplored,  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  devoting  a  chapter  to 
the  subject.  I  never  was  more  in  earnest  than  I  am  when  I 
urge  that  slang  ought  to  be  kept  out  of  the  newspapers.  Dis 
tinctive  circles  of  society  may  indulge  in  it  without  great  gen 
eral  harm,  but  its  continual  use  in  the  public  press,  from  which 
the  masses  in  a  great  degree  shape  their  style  and  morals,  ought 
to  meet  with  the  most  emphatic  disapproval.  If  only  a  few 
journals,  of  limited  influence  and  unlimited  obscurity,  tolerated 
slang  in  their  columns,  I  should  not  deem  it  my  province  so 
explicitly  to  deprecate  it.  But  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  slang  is 
too  often  to  be  found  in  the  columns  (notably  the  "local" 
columns)  of  some  of  the  most  widely-circulated  and  influential 
newspapers  in  the  country.  I  could  mention  one  or  two  leading 
New  York  dailies  (but  will  not  do  so,  lest  the  others  should  be 
jealous)  whose  reporters  are  apparently  allowed  to  use  slang 
"at  discretion,"  and  in  whose  columns  are  continually  to  be 
found  such  expressions  as  "  went  for  "  (for  assaulted),  "  boozy" 
(for  intoxicated),  "lip"  (for  offensive  language),  etc.  This 


SLANG.  47 

is  not  creditable  to  any  reporter,  and,  so  far  from  being  witty, 
is  on  a  par  with  the  outrageous  pun  that  is  produced  by  severe 
straining.  Reporting  is  a  business,  should  be  reduced  to  a 
business,  and  the  language  of  a  reporter  should  be  generally  as 
direct  and  pointed  as  the  writing  and  figures  in  a  book-keeper's 
entry  in  his  day-book  or  ledger.  Imagine  a  book-keeper  slightly 
changing  the  name  of  a  customer,  or  altering  the  sum  of  a 
column  of  figures,  in  order  to  make  a  joke  of  it.  This  world 
is  not,  as  some  reporters  seem  to  imagine,  one  stupendous  joke ; 
certainly  it  has  not  been  such  to  me. 

Everything  can  be  said  against  the  use  of  slang,  and  nothing 
in  favor  of  it.  It  introduces  unnecessary  words,  and  confuses 
our  language  so  that  the  pupil  of  the  next  generation  may  not 
be  able  to  distinguish  the  pure  English  words  from  the  spurious 
stuff  called  "slang."  It  gives  new  and  ridiculous  meanings 
(if  any  meanings  at  all)  to  old  words,  true,  tried  and  familiar 
to  every  tongue.  The  use  of  slang  takes  the  place  of  real  wit 
and  humor,  and  seems  to  threaten  to  drive  them  off  the  field. 
Legitimate  fun  is  discouraged  when  we  arrive  at  a  point  where 
only  a  few  coarse  slang  words  will  create  a  horse-laugh,  and 
where  refined  and  courteous  humor  is  not  even  understood.  This 
slang  business  becomes  a  serious  matter,  when  even  our  standard 
dictionaries  take  dozens  of  its  words  from  coarse  and  foul 
mouths,  and  give  them  as  part  of  our  vocabulary  —  although 
marked,  colloquial  and  low. 

About  twenty  years  ago,  I  think,  the  prize-ring  began  to  be 
one  of  the  recognized  "institutions"  of  this  country,  coming 
from  old  countries  whose  vices  we  seem  to  display  a  wonderful 
aptness  for  imitating.  Those  were  the  days  of  Hyer,  Sullivan, 
Morrissey,  Heenan,  Sayers.  If  the  newspapers  gave  voluminous 
reports  of  "battles"  for  the  championship  between  leading 
pugilists,  they  only  supplied  a  demand  ;  for  I  believe  I  do  not 


48  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

exaggerate,  when  I  say  that  a  majority  of  the  whole  people  of 
the  country  began  to  take  a  more  or  less  animated  interest  in 
the  prize-ring,  and  certainly  read  with  avidity  the  long  accounts 
of  physical  contests  between  strong  men.  Of  prize-fighting  and 
its  effects,  if  any,  on  the  morals  of  the  people,  it  is  not  my  pur 
pose  nor  my  province  here  to  speak ;  and  I  even  doubt  whether 
the  morals  of  those  who  engage  in  or  witness  it  are  seriously 
affected.  I  refer  to  the  subject  only  to  say  that  to  prize-fighting, 
so  fulsomely  reported  in  the  public  press,  we  probably  owe  more 
for  the  amount  of  slang  in  circulation  than  to  any  other  specific 
cause. 

The  reporters,  in  looking  upon  a  prize-fight  and  writing  it 
up,  naturally  caught  the  "technical"  expressions  of  the 
fraternity,  and  their  accounts  as  naturally  bristled  with  such 
words  and  phrases  as,  "  caught  him  on  the  mug,"  "  lit  out  with 
his  left,"  "got  him  in  chancery,"  "sent  him  to  Coventry," 
"  made  him  kiss  his  mother,"  "handed  him  one  on  the  jaw," 
or  on  the  "meat-trap,"  the  left  "peeper,"  etc. 

These,  and  whole  scores  of  kindred  terms,  were  made  familiar 
as  household  words,  and  passed  from  the  mouths  of  reading 
people  back  into  the  mouths  of  "  young  and  rising  "  reporters ; 
and  many  of  the  latter,  deeming  it  a  very  good  and  easy  way  to 
be  "witty,"  or  "spicy,"  lost  no  opportunity  of  introducing  the 
idiom  of  the  prize-ring  into  their  reports  of  everything,  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  So  did  the  language  of  many  a 
newspaper,  and  again  of  its  young  readers,  become  tainted. 

If  an  encounter  between  two  men  occurred  on  the  street,  the 
reporter,  on  the  strain  to  be  witty,  did  not  think  of  so  ridiculous 
a  thing  as  telling  all  about  it  in  language  at  once  simple  and 
respectable;  but  of  course  described  how  the  aggressor  "went 
for  "  the  object  of  his  wrath ;  how  he  "  handed  him  one  on  the 
bugle  ;  "  how  the  other,  in  turn,  "  put  up  his  props ;  "  how  he 


SLANG.  49 

"squared  away"  at  his  assailant  and  "pasted  him  on  the 
nose,"  or  "whacked  him  on  the  snoot,"  or  "put  a  head  on 
him,"  or  "  fitted  him  with  a  tin  ear,"  or  "sent  him  to  grass;" 
and  how  the  aggressor,  having  been  worsted  in  the  fight,  — 
although  the  reporter  carefully  avoids  saying  so, —  "  throwed 
up  the  sponge  "  and  eventually  "walked  off  on  his  ear,"  unless, 
indeed,  "  taken  in  "  by  a  "  cop." 

Every  institution,  profession  and  trade  has  its  peculiar 
nomenclature,  to  be  used  only  within  each  respective  fraternity; 
but  what  confusion  it  would  create  to  attempt  to  introduce  all, 
in  a  kind  of  figurative,  allegorical,  or  semi-literal  way,  into  an 
every-day  language  !  No  such  wholesale  attempt  to  Babelize 
our  language  has  yet  been  made;  but  it  does  seem  that  the 
whole  jargon  of  the  prize-ring,  about  the  rudest  of  all  distinctive 
nomenclature,  has  been  chosen  by  reporters  to  enrich  (?)  our 
diction  and  polish  the  tongues  of  the  people. 

But  why  not  go  into  other  spheres  where  "  slang  "  of  a  more 
refined  nature  may  be  obtained  ?  The  realms  of  science,  for 
example,  are  rich  in  expressions  that  would  aid  the  reporter  in 
making  his  language  as  obscure  and  unintelligible  to  the  masses 
as  possible,  which  seems  to  be  the  object  aimed  at  by  some 
reporters.  For  example,  he  gives  an  account  of  a  man  com 
mitting  suicide,  one  who  had  been  low-spirited  for  some  days 
before  his  death;  why  not  say  that  "the  mercury  in  his  glass 
had  been  depressed  to  the  unusually  low  figure  of  27.05  ?"  or 
that  "  the  humidity  of  his  soul  had  advanced  to  99.999  ?  "  Or, 
dropping  meteorology  and  going  into  astronomy,  if  the  man 
suffered  temporary  aberration  of  mind  common  to  his  ancestors, 
it  might  be  said  that  he  had  recently  "moved  in  an  elliptic 
orbit,"  and  (if  a  love  affair  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
trouble)  that  "  the  eccentricity  of  the  said  orbit  was  due  to  the 
periodical  proximity  of  a  certain  planet. ' '  This  might  mean  a 
5  D 


SO  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

star  actress  with  whom  the  poor  fellow  had  fallen  in  love,  to 
the  extent  of  deranging  his  mind,  but  no  one  would  ever  guess 
it,  and  thus  the  reporter  would  succeed  in  his  prime  object  — 
that  of  not  being  understood.  All  these  things  will  be  found 
highly  advantageous  —  that  is,  if  the  desired  end  is  to  make 
language  as  unintelligible  and  as  nearly  useless  as  possible. 

The  idiom  of  sailors  is  sometimes  affected  by  such  young 
writers  as  seem  to  think  that  language  is  most  valuable  when  it 
is  most  occult.  There  are  reporters  who,  in  a  happy  vein  — 
but  it  must  be  spontaneous,  and  not  studied  —  occasionally 
produce  very  amusing  caricatures  by  some  such  means.  For 
example,  I  some  years  ago  sent  a  reporter  —  one  who  seldom 
attempted  to  "  make  a  joke  "  —to  see  what  was  going  on  in  a 
certain  municipal  court.  He  reported  one  case  pretty  fully,  in 
which  a  sailor  was  the  defendant ;  and  as  he  assured  me  that 
"  Jack  "  really  did  use  many  nautical  terms  in  the  course  of  his 
"statement"  of  the  case,  I  consented  to  publish  the  following 
exaggerated  account  of  the  trial,  the  more  readily  because  it 
carried  its  meaning  with  it : 

ASSAULT  AND  BATTERY.  —  William  Myrtle,  a  sailor,  was  before  Judge 
L ,  this  afternoon,  on  a  charge  of  assault  and  battery. 

Charles  Welde,  a  clerk  in  the  dry-goods  house  of  F.  F.  Brown  &  Co., 
testified  that  while  walking  along  PineStreet  yesterday  afternoon,  the  sidewalk 
being  somewhat  crowded,  he  accidentally  ran  against  Myrtle;  that  he  tried 
to  step  aside  to  allow  defendant  to  pass;  that  defendant  was  unreasonably 
angry,  and  used  very  offensive  language;  and  that  when  he  (witness) 
remonstrated  with  him,  the  defendant  struck  him  a  blow  with  his  fist, 
knocking  him  down.  The  face  of  the  prisoner  showed  some  marks  of 
violence,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  the  left  cheek-bone. 

The  judge  asked  Myrtle  if  he  had  counsel — explaining  that  counsel  meant 
a  lawyer  to  defend  him  —  and  he  responded  that  he  had  not.  His  Honor 
then  asked  him  what  he  had  to  say  concerning  the  breach  of  the  peace  charged 
against  him,  when  the  following  remarkable  scene  ensued,  Myrtle  beginning : 

"I'll  tell  you,  sir  —  " 


SLANG.  5 1 

"Call  him  'Your  Honor,'  "  whispered  an  officer,  who  stood  at  the  elbow 
of  the  prisoner. 

"Your  Honor,"  the  prisoner  proceeded,  "I'll  tell  you,  sir,  how  it  was, 
sir.  I  was  standin'  on  my  course,  runnin'  before  the  wind,  and,  as  I  hap 
pened  to  be  keepin'  a  look-out  off  the  port  bow  —  " 

"What  is  that  you  say,"  asked  his  Honor,  interrupting  the  prisoner;  "I 
don't  quite  understand  you." 

"  Keep  trim,  sir;  keep  trim,"  responded  the  prisoner,  "or  you  may  shift 
your  cargo  and  lay  on  your  beam-ends.  Only  don't  get  a  list,  and  you  may 
batten  down  my  main  hatches  if  I  don't — " 

"  Tut !     Such  nonsense !  "  interrupted  the  judge. 

Here  an  officer  stepped  up  to  his  Honor,  and  pointing  to  the  prisoner 
with  a  significant  gesture,  said  something  in  a  low  tone ;  whereupon  Judge 
L said  aloud  : 

"  O  —  ah,  yes;  I  see.     Well,  send  for  the  interpreter." 

An  attendant  left  the  court-room,  the  prisoner  remaining  standing  and 
staring  about  him  as  though  apprehensive  that  some  one  had  been  sent  for 
to  come  and  hang  him.  But  the  attendant  soon  returned,  bringing  with  him 
a  mild-looking  man  who  did  not  look  much  like  an  executioner,  but  who 
was  no  other  than  Mr.  Edmoine,  the  sworn  interpreter  of  the  Court  of  Com 
mon  Pleas.  When  he  had  taken  his  position,  the  judge  told  the  prisoner  to 
go  on. 

Myrtle  brightened  up  when  he  perceived  that  he  was  not  to  be  imme 
diately  hanged,  for  he  seemed  to  take  in  the  situation,  and  proceeded : 

"  Well,  sir,  seein'  I've  an  old  shipmate  alongside,  I'll  tell  you.  As  I  was 
sayin',  not  keepin'  a  look-out  dead  ahead,  but  havin'  an  eye  out  for  a  sail  on 
the  port  bow,  fear  o'  bein  run  down  —  " 

"  What  is  that?  "  asked  his  Honor. 

"  Guarding  against  a  collision  with  some  one  approaching  on  his  left,  your 
Honor,"  explained  the  interpreter. 

"  Well?"  said  the  judge,  to  intimate  that  the  prisoner  might  proceed. 

"You  see,  sir,"  resumed  the  prisoner,  "all  at  once  this  old  craft" — 
pointing  to  Mr.  Welde  —  "  rounded  to  and  struck  me  amidships,  and  —  " 

"  What  ?  He  struck  you  first  ?"  interrupted  his  Honor,  looking  inquir 
ingly  at  the  prisoner,  then  at  the  interpreter. 

"  He  means,"  explained  the  interpreter,  "  ran  against  him,  the  prisoner 
receiving  the  accidental  shock  somewhere  about  the  pit  of  the  stomach." 


52  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

"  Then  says  I,"  continued  Myrtle,  "  says  I,  sir  :  '  Ship  ahoy  !  Port  your 
helm  and  run  up  your  mains'l,  or  I  can't  clear  your  bows,'  and  —  " 

"Your  Honor,"  put  in  the  interpreter,  perceiving  that  the  judge 
looked  puzzled,  "  he  wished  to  convey  the  idea  to  the  complainant  in 
this  case  that  he  had  better  turn  to  the  left,  and  so  pass  on  the  prisoner's 
right." 

"  But  that  mainsail?"  said  the  judge,  inquiringly. 

"  Meant,"  responded  Mr.  Edmoine,  "  that  the  complaining  witness  should 
exercise  more  alacrity  in  passing,  just  as  a  small  craft  will  move  faster  by 
setting  an  additional  sail." 

"Ah,  I  see,"  said  his  Honor.  "Well,  Myrtle,  proceed.  What  did  he 
say  ?  " 

"  Say,  sir?  Signaled  as  much  as  to  order  me  to  haul  down  my  colors, 
and—" 

"Gave  him  to  understand,"  interrupted  Mr.  Edmoine,  "that  he  must  be 
less  aggressive  in  his  manner." 

"  And  what  did  you  say  ?  "  queried  Judge  L . 

"'Look  out,  there!'  says  I,  'or  you'll  get  your  fore-t'gallants'l  carried 
away  — ' M 

"A  threat  to  knock  his  hat  off,  your  Honor,"  put  in  the  interpreter. 

"  Did  he  reply  to  you  ?  "  asked  the  judge. 

"  Yes,  your  Honor  —  wanted  me  to  lower  my  topgallant  yards;  so —  " 

"  Keep  his  hands  down,"  explained  Mr.  Edmoine. 

"  An'  says  I :  '  Take  a  reef  in  your  upper  fore-tops'l,  or  I  — '  " 

"  Meant,  to  keep  his  tongue  more  quiet." 

"Well?" 

"  Then,  sir,  he  rigged  his  spare  spars  and  began  to  h'ist  'em  —  " 

The  judge  looked  bewildered. 

"  Evidently,"  said  Mr.  Edmoine,  "  he  means  that  the  man  rolled  up  his 
sleeves  slightly  and  raised  his  hands." 

"  So,"  resumed  Myrtle,  "  says  I,  '  Look  here,  old  craft,  if  you  don't  re 
spond  to  signals,  just  look  out  for  your  starboard  light —  '  " 

"  Mind  his  right  eye,"  said  the  interpreter. 

"  Then  I  just  run  up  my  topgallant  yards,  set  spanker,  trysails,  staysails, 
jib,  flying-jib  and  jib-boom,  and  bore  down  on  his  starboard  bow —  " 

"  Seems  that  he  rushed  at  him  and  struck  him  a  blow  about  the  right 
cheek-bone,  I  should  say,"  remarked  the  interpreter. 


SLANG.  5  3 

"  And  stove  a  hole  below  his  water-line,  so  that  he  filled  instantly  and 
went  down  by  the  stern,  while  runnin'  up  his  ensign,  union  down." 

"  Knocked  the  man  down,  who,  it  seems,  was  so  alarmed  as  to  call  for 
the  police,"  said  the  interpreter. 

"  And,"  concluded  the  defendant,  "just  then  a  man-o'-war  run  up  along 
side,  head  on,  threw  out  his  hawser  and  made  fast  to  my  capstan,  and  towed 
me  into  dock." 

"  A  policeman  arrested  him  and  took  him  to  the  station-house,"  explained 
the  interpreter. 

"Ah,  exactly,  I  see,"  said  his  Honor.  "Well,  William  Myrtle,  you 
probably  thought  you  had  some  provocation,  although  the  collision  between 
you  and  the  complainant  may  have  been,  and  probably  was,  purely  acci 
dental  on  his  part.  But  it  is,  in  any  event,  necessary  that  a  rebuke  should 
be  promptly  administered  to  any  one  who  resorts  to  violence — any  one  who,' 
except  in  self-defense,  strikes  or  lays  hands  on  another.  In  this  view  I  am 
supported  by  a  jurist  no  less  eminent  than  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone,  as  well 
as  by  distinct  statutes  of  this  Commonwealth.  In  view  of  the  fact, 
however,  that  the  act  appears  to  have  been  entirely  unpremeditated, 
the  Court  will  deal  with  you  as  leniently  as  section  two  of  chapter  sixty- 
one  of  the  Revised  Statutes  will  allow.  The  sentence  of  the  Court  is,  that 
you  be  imprisoned  in  the  county  jail  for  a  period  of  ten  days." 

"Ay,  ay,  sir!"  responded  the  sailor,  in  a  hearty  voice. 

The  judge  once  more  looked  inquiringly  at  the  interpreter,  who  said : 

"  He  means  he'll  go,  your  Honor." 

Thereupon,  a  "man-of-war"  made  fast  to  the  "jolly  craft,"  and  towed 
him  out  into  deep  water. 

Perhaps  I  cannot  more  appropriately  conclude  this  chapter 
on  "  Slang  "  than  by  quoting  these  verses,  written  a  year  or  two 
ago  for  Saturday  Night. 

OLD   GRANDPA'S    SOLILOQUY. 

It  wasn't  so  when  I  was  young  — 

We  used  plain  language  then ; 
We  didn't  speak  of  "them  galloots," 

When  meanin'  boys  or  men. 


54  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

When  speaking  of  the  nice  hand-write 

Of  Joe,  or  Tom,  or  Bill, 
We  did  it  plain — we  did  n't  say, 

"  He  slings  a  nasty  quill." 

An'  when  we  seen  a  gal  we  liked, 
Who  never  failed  to  please, 

We  called  her  pretty,  neat  an'  good, 
But  not  "  about  the  cheese." 

Well,  when  we  met  a  good  old  friend, 

We  had  n't  lately  seen, 
We  greeted  him,  but  did  n't  say, 

"  Hello,  you  old  sardine !" 

The  boys  sometimes  got  mad  an'  fit ; 

We  spoke  of  kicks  an'  blows ; 
But  now  they  "  whack  him  on  the  snoot," 

Or  "  paste  him  on  the  nose." 

Once,  when  a  youth  was  turned  away 
By  her  he  held  most  dear, 

He  walked  upon  his  feet — but  now 
He  "walks  off  on  his  ear." 

We  used  to  dance,  when  I  was  young, 

An'  used  to  call  it  so ; 
But  now  they  don't — they  only  "  sling 

The  light,  fantastic  toe." 

Of  death  we  spoke  in  language  plain, 
That  no  one  did  perplex ; 

But  in  these  days  one  does  n't  die — 
He  "passes  in  his  checks." 

We  praised  the  man  of  common  sense; 

"  His  judgment 's  good,"  we  said  : 
But  now  they  say,  "  Well,  that  old  plum 

Has  got  a  level  head !  " 


INTERVIEWING.  55 

It 's  rather  sad  the  children  now 

Are  learnin'  all  sich  talk; 
They  've  learnt  to  "  chin  "  instead  of  chat, 

An'  "waltz"  instead  of  walk. 

To  little  Harry,  yesterday  — 

My  grandchild,  aged  two  — 
I  said,  "  You  love  grandpa  ?  "     Said  he, 

"  You  bet  your  boots  I  do !  " 

The  children  bowed  to  strangers  once ; 

It  is  no  longer  so  — 
The  little  girls,  as  well  as  boys, 

Now  greet  you  with  "  Hello ! " 

Oh,  give  me  back  the  good  old  days, 

When  both  the  old  and  young 
Conversed  in  plain,  old-fashioned  words, 

And  slang  was  never  "  slung." 


CHAPTER    VI. 

INTER  VIE  WING. 

INTERVIEWING"  is  a  phase  of  journalism  which,  I  think, 
does  not  either  necessarily  or  properly  belong  to  it.  It  is 
of  comparatively  recent  creation,  and  has  already  assumed  dis 
gusting  proportions.  I  trust  that,  agreeably  to  the  rule  govern 
ing  the  decline  of  things  of  rapid  growth,  its  decay  will  be 
commensurately  rapid,  and  its  end  sudden  and  violent.  As  an 
adjunct  to  journalism,  interviewing  is  out  of  place.  It  is  little 
and  undignified,  placing  both  the  interviewer  and  the  inter 
viewed  in  a  very  undesirable  attitude  before  the  public.  Views 


5  6  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

which  a  prominent  man  may  express,  in  season,  on  some  ques 
tion  in  which  public  attention  is  largely  absorbed,  may  be  pub 
lished  with  perfect  propriety ;  but  it  does  seem,  to  me,  little 
short  of  audacity  on  the  part  of  a  newspaper  to  send  a  reporter 
to  "bore"  any  man,  get  him  to  "say  something," — it  maybe, 
without  mature  reflection, — take  down  his  words  in  short-hand, 
as  they  fall  from  his  lips,  and  publish  them. 

As  a  rule,  when  it  is  important  that  a  man's  views  on  any 
particular  subject  should  be  known,  the  propriety  and  good 
taste  of  sending  a  reporter  to  hunt  him  up,  or  hunt  him  down, 
in  his  office  or  parlor,  and  talk  them  out  of  him  by  inches,  are 
not  apparent  to  me.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  said  public  man 
is  in  a  position  in  which  his  proposed  policy  may  affect  the 
public  welfare,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  in  perfect  keep 
ing  with  his  dignity  voluntarily  to  give  a  statement  of  his  views 
to  the  anxious  public  in  "a  card"  in  the  newspapers  (when  no 
more  regular  channel  is  presented)  ;  and,  in  doing  so,  he  would 
not  only  appear  more  dignified  than  in  the  attitude  of  being 
cross-examined  by  a  reporter,  but  would  thus  gain  the  material 
advantage  of  being  able  to  present  his  thoughts  more  clearly, 
by  putting  them  in  writing  himself,  when  alone  and  unbored, 
and  in  moments  of  cool  judgment. 

But  the  fact  is,  many  of  the  so-called  "interviews"  with 
public  men  (if  I  may  be  considerately  pardoned  for  exposing 
the  secret,  or,  rather,  fraud  on  readers  of  newspapers)  are 
"arranged."  I  mean  that  the  interviewed  party,  in  the  awful- 
ness  of  his  dignity,  dees  not  wish  to  appear  in  the  light  of 
seeking  to  "put  himself  right"  before  the  public;  and  so 
one  of  his  "friends,"  for  example  —  sometimes  his  modest  self 
— arranges  with  the  editor  or  proprietor  of  a  newspaper  to  send 
a  reporter  "  around  "  at  a  certain  time  and  "  interview  "  him; 
and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  reporter  always  finds  the 


INTER  VIE  WING.  5  J 

"  great  man  "  in  his  private  office,  "  on  time."    Then  the  inter 
view  proceeds  after  the  following  fashion,  as  afterward  published : 

Reporter. — The  Hon.  Peter  Snuggs,  I  believe  ? 

Hon.  Peter  Snuggs. — Yes,  sir ;  I  have  the  honor  of  being  that  person. 

Rep.  —  I  represent  the  daily  Fryer. 

Hon.  P.  S.—  Ah  ?     Be  seated. 

Rep.  (thanking  Hon.  P.  S.,  and  being  seated.) — If  I  am  not  intruding, 
Mr.  Snuggs  — 

Hon.  P.  S.— Not  at  all. 

Rep.  —  Then  I  would  like  to  ask  your  opinion  on  a  question  of  great 
public  interest,  provided,  of  course,  that  you  have  no  objection  to  having 
your  views  published. 

Hon.  P.  S.  — What  is  the  subject? 

[NOTE  (not  by  the  reporter).  Hon.  P.  S.  knows  well  enough  what  the  subject  is,  and  has 
all  his  answers  to  the  expected  queries  prepared,  and  committed  to  memory.] 

Rep.  —  The  subject  is  one  of  great  delicacy.  You  are  doubtless  aware 
that  public  attention  is  just  at  this  time  directed  to  the  great  question  of  an 
increase  of  the  duty  on  imported  raw  materials  for  ladies'  chignons  ? 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  I  cannot  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  this  question  is  convulsing 
the  popular  mind. 

Rep.  — You  have,  no  doubt,  given  the  subject  much  attention  ? 

Hon.  P.  S. — Well — yes;  although  I  had  not  thought  of  giving  publicity 
to  my  views  just  at  this  time.  Might  not  such  a  course  be  considered  a 
little  premature  ? 

Rep.  —  Not  at  all,  Mr.  Snuggs.  The  public  are  breathlessly  waiting  to 
hear  what  you  have  to  say  on  this  great  question  ;  and,  as  some  of  your 
political  adversaries  have  undertaken  to  say  what  your  views  are,  and  so 
probably  placed  you  in  a  false  light,  it  is  but  justice  to  yourself  and  to  the 
community  that  your  views  should  be  published,  with  the  stamp  of  authority. 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  If  I  thought  so  —  (hesitating.) 

Rep.  —  You  can  rely  on  it,  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Snuggs. 

Hon.  P.  S. —  (After  a  moment's  thought.)  —  Then  the  question  would 
seem  to  be  as  to  whether  I  should  regard  any  increase  in  the  duty  on  the 
materials  referred  to  as  deleterious? 

Rep.  —  Exactly.     Would  it,  in  your  opinion,  be  bad  public  policy  u» 


58  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

increase  the  duty  on  those  materials  thirty-three  and  one-third  per  cent.,  as 
proposed? 

Hon.  P.  S. —  (Emphatically.)  — I  have  no  doubt  of  it. 

Rep.  —  Do  you  think,  then,  that  the  proposed  increase  of  duty  on  the 
materials  for  this  important  —  I  might  say,  indispensable  —  article  of  female 
attire  would  place  it  beyond  the  reach  of  many  excellent  women,  and  that 
on  that  account  their  equanimity  of  temper  would  be  disturbed,  and  so  their 
usefulness  impaired? 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  I  do.  Nothing  seems  to  me  so  inimical  to  the  public  wel 
fare  as  any  measure  calculated  to  irritate  the  ladies,  especially  the  married 
ladies,  and  so  to  involve  the  peace  of  homes.  On  the  tranquillity  of  house 
holds  and  hearth-stones  depends  the  future  growth  of  our  population,  the 
numerical  strength  of  posterity  ;  yes,  and  the  morals  of  the  rising  generation, 
who,  if  brought  up  in  the  midst  of  domestic  broils  — which  could  not  fail  to 
be  largely  augmented  by  the  infamous  proposition  largely  to  increase  the 
duty  on  raw  materials  for  the  manufacture  of  chignons — would  lose  their 
respect  for  women  and  their  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  domestic  peace, 
and  arrive  at  manhood  familiar  with  scenes  of  anger  and  violence.  The 
proposed  measure,  sir,  if  adopted^  would  be  little  less  than  an  enormity ! 

Rep.  —  Do  you  think  it  will  prevail  ? 

Hon.  P.  S. —  (Thoughtfully.) — I  can  scarcely  think  it  will.  I  know 
there  is  much  political  corruption  in  these  days,  and  that  a  large  moneyed 
influence  will  be  brought  to  bear  in  favor  of  the  measure ;  but  I  am  not  yet 
prepared  to  believe  that  the  American  people  can  have  become  so  nearly 
lost  to  all  sense  of  patriotism  —  can  be  capable  of  so  ignoring  that  spirit  that 
fired  the  hearts  of  'Seventy-six  —  as  quietly  to  submit  to  an  increase  of 
thirty-three  and  one-third  per  cent,  in  the  duty  on  raw  materials  for  chi 
gnons  !  No,  sir,  (excitedly.)  —  No,  Sir-ee ! 

Rep.  —  Then  I  understand  you  to  say  that  you  have  no  doubt  of  the 
efficacy  of  a  liberal  supply  of  chignons  —  and  everything  else  that  the  ladies 
desire  —  to  preserve  the  peace  of  families  ? 

Hon.  P.  S.— Emphatically. 

Rep.  —  And  that  you  still  have  an  amount  of  faith  in  the  patriotism  and 
manly  independence  of  the  people  that  justifies  you  in  offering  the  confident 
assurance  that  this  iniquitous  measure — the  proposed  large  increase  in 
the  duty  on  raw  materials  for  chignons  —  is  not  likely  to  prevail? 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  Em— phatically. 


INTER  VIE  WING.  5  Q 

Rep.  —  Thank  you.     I  trust  that  in  this  intrusion  — 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  I  beg  that  you  will  not  think  it  an  intrusion,  and  I  assure 
you  that  I  do  not  so  regard  it. 

Rep.  —  Then  I  have  not  seriously  disturbed  you  in  the  exercise  of  your 
arduous  public  duties  ? 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  Not  at  all.     (Very  earnestly.)     Not  —  at  —  all. 

Rep.  —  Thank  you. 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  Not  at  all.  If,  in  giving  my  views  to  the  public  at  this 
time,  through  the  excellent  medium  of  the  Fryer,  I  have  benefited  that 
public  and  given  any  material  assurance  of  a  probability  of  continued 
domestic  peace,  I  shall  only  be  too  happy. 

Rep.  —  (Rising.)  —  Thank  you.     Good-morning. 

Hon.  P.  S.  —  Good-morning. 

And  so  this  "  interview"  is  terminated,  and  so  published,  and 
so  the  views  of  the  "great  man"  —who,  by  the  way,  "at  the 
urgent  solicitation  of  numerous  friends,"  has  consented  to  run 
for  a  re  -  nomination  —  become  known  to  that  breathlessly 
waiting  public. 

It  would  be  unjust,  however,  to  assert  that  all  interviews  are 
pre-arranged,  as  in  the  case  of  the  eminent  Snuggs.  Reporters 
do  sometimes  call  upon  public  men,  unexpectedly  to  the  latter, 
and  entirely  without  any  collusion  with  "friends."  As  an 
example  of  the  improvised  interview,  I  cite  a  case  which 
occurred  some  time  before  the  autumn  of  1874.  A  New  York 
reporter  called  on  President  Grant,  and  the  following  was  the 
result : 

Reporter.  — Your  Excellency,  I  have  come  to  ask  you,  if  the  inquiry  be 
deemed  pertinent,  what  your  views  are  on  the  third-tenn  in  estion.  The 
press  — 

President  Grant.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  Well — I  thought,  as  the  subject  occupies  a  large  share  of  public 
attention  — 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 


6O  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

Rep.  —  At  least,  I  might  be  pardoned  for  asking  you  if,  in  case  — 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  I  was  merely  going  to  say  that  in  case  you  had  good  reasons  for 
not  wishing  to  commit  — 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  Of  course,  your  Excellency,  I  had  no  notion  of  being  importunate, 
but  thought  that  — 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  I  trust,  your  Excellency,  that  this  will  not  be  deemed  an  intrusion  ? 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  At  least  nothing  could  have  been  further  — 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  (Going.)  —  Your  Excellency,  I  am,  in  any  event,  glad  that  I  have 
had  the  pleasure  of — 

P.  G. —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Rep.  —  (Pleasantly  and  politely.)  — Good-morning. 

P.  G.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

JRN&INS. 

IF  I  have  to  condemn  the  practice  of  "interviewing,"  as 
unworthy  of  decent  journalism,  where  shall  I  find  language 
in  which  to  express  the  detestation  and  loathing  with  which  I 
look  upon  "Jenkinsism"  ?  Of  all  the  questionable  work  a 
reporter  has  ever  been  called  upon  to  do,  JerTkins  reporting  is 
the  lowest  and  meanest.  If  a  reporter  is  called  upon  by  the 
managers  of  the  paper  he  is  connected  with  —  proprietors  who 
mistake  the  mission  of  a  newspaper  —  to  do  such  work,  and  if 
he  has  no  relish  for  it,  he  is  to  be  pitied ;  if  he  has  a  relish  for 
it,  he  is  to  be  despised.  A  writer  with  such  tastes  as  would 


JENKINS*  6 1 

make  it  agreeable  to  him  to  expend  his  "  talents  "  in  describing 
the  petticoat  of  a  bride  or  the  coat-tails  of  a  bridegroom,  or  the 
watch-chain  and  whiskers  of  some  corporation  autocrat,  no 
more  deserves  to  be  rated  as  a  journalist  than  a  painter  and 
glazier  deserves  to  be  classed  with  the  Rembrandt  Peales,  the 
Edwin  Landseers,  the  Michael  Angelos,  and  is  not  one-fortieth 
part  so  much  to  be  respected  ! 

I  do  not  enjoy  the  privilege  of  knowing  personally  any  so- 
called  journalist  of  the  Jenkins  type,  but  I  can  readily  fancy  a 
picture  of  the  Jenkins  reporter,  as  he  might  appear  on  so  im 
portant  an  occasion  as  the  marriage  of  Miss  Lucinda,  daughter 
of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Buggies,  the  wealthy  contractor  (formerly  a 
hod-carrier),  to  Mr.  Ichabod  Snubbs,  son  of  the  opulent  and 
princely  speculator  in  railroad  stocks  (who,  by  the  way,  began 
his  useful  business  career  as  the  sole  proprietor  of  a  peanut- 
stand).  I  can  imagine  Jenkins,  as  he  stands  in  a  thoughtful 
attitude  in  the  full  glare  of  the  parlor  chandelier.  He  is  a  man 
of  small  stature,  and  his  hair  is  equitably  and  exquisitely  parted 
in  the  middle.  He  has  little  reddish  eyes,  peculiarly  adapted 
to  views  of  domestic  scenery  as  observable  through  key-holes ; 
and  a  small,  turned-up  nose,  whose  sharpness  is  suggestive  of 
its  adaptability  to  prying  into  hidden  things  that  concern 
neither  him  nor  the  public.  Just  beneath  that  penetrating  nose 
a  fragile  mustache  struggles  for  existence,  like  a  meager  tuft  of 
weak  and  fading  moss  that  is  starving  on  the  face  of  a  barren 
rock;  while  his  unplethoric  cheek  (which,  however,  is  ample 
in  a  figurative  sense)  is  fringed  with  a  straggling  whisker.  His 
whole  aspect  is  one  of  strangely-mingled  self-importance  and 
imbecility. 

He  is  in  his  holiday  attire,  Jenkins  is ;  and  he  struts  about 
with  an  air  of  greatness  that  even  the  bride's  father,  the  wealthy 
ex-hod-carrier,  would  scarcely  dare  to  assume.  His  polished 
6 


62  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

boots  shine  and  glitter  as  they  shuffle  over  the  Brussels  carpet 
of  the  parlor,  and  glisten  under  the  gas-light  of  the  halls  and 
stairways,  as  he  glides  about,  like  a  freshly-incarnated  imp, 
peering  into  bed-chambers  and  poking  his  nose  into  closets. 
I  can  fancy  him,  in  his  tour  of  inspection,  entering  the  bridal- 
chamber  itself,  noting  the  wall-paper,  the  ceiling,  the  floor,  the 
gas-burners,  and,  above  all,  the  interesting  couch;  closely 
scrutinizing  the  lace-ornamented  pillow-cases,  the  soft  blankets, 
the  snowy  coverlets  and  sheets ;  and  even  stooping  reverently 
and  looking  under  the  bed,  as  though,  like  many  a  timid  dame 
on  the  point  of  retiring,  to  see  if  "there  's  a  man  under  it." 

Then  I  see  him  in  the  presence  of  the  "happy  pair,"  pencil 
and  note-book  in  hand,  turning  about  the  lappel  of  the  bride 
groom's  coat,  counting  the  buttons,  then  gently  lifting  the  tails 
to  examine  the  silken  linings.  I  see  him  gaze  intently  upon 
the  snowy  linen  handkerchief  of  the  bridegroom,  as  the  latter 
gracefully  draws  it  from  his  pocket  at  such  seasons  as  its  useful 
ness  cannot  be  ignored,  carefully  examining  the  corners  and 
noting  the  handsomely-worked  initials.  I  can  fancy  his  running 
his  fingers  daintily  through  the  fragile  textures  of  the  bride's 
apparel,  carefully  examining  her  from  head  to  foot,  and  making 
notes  to  be  written  up  in  some  such  shape  as  this : 

The  bride's  dress  was  simply  elegant.  The  front  breadth  and  first  gores 
were  cut  to  fit  the  figure  closely,  and  had  no  trimming  on  them,  but  at  the 
sides  seams  were  cut  in  battlements,  and  lapped  over  on  to  the  back  widths. 
These  formed  a  very  long  train,  which  latter  was  finished  on  the  bottom  by 
a  side-plaited  flounce.  The  chatelaine  corsage  was  cift  high,  with  Marie 
Antoinette  sleeves,  trimmed  with  satin  plaitings  and  lace  flounces.  These 
flouncings  were  made  to  match  the  over-dress,  as  was  also  the  lace 
garniture  of  the  corsage,  and  formed  a  part  of  it.  The  dress  itself  was  not 
the  ordinary  point  which  is  really  intended  to  do  service  as  a  shawl,  but  a 
full-trained  skirt,  falling  to  the  hem  of  the  satin  dress,  and  gracefully  looped 
with  orange-blossoms  and  stephanotis.  The  same  flowers  formed  a  half- 
wreath  on  the  corsage,  and  completed  the  ornamentation  of  the  sleeves. 
The  vail  of  filmy  tulle  that  finished  this  simply  elegant  costume,  fell  to  the 


63 

dress  hem,  and  was  fastened  by  an  aigrette  of  white  blossoms,  from  which  a 
pendent  wreath  outlined  the  left  side  of  the  vail  throughout  its  entire  length. 
Her  ornaments  were  diamonds  presented  by  her  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Street- 
Contractor  Overbust,  and  in  her  hand  she  carried  an  elegant  fan  of  natural 
flowers,  tuberoses  and  stephanotis  being  the  principal  ones.  The  other 
side,  upon  which  they  were  mounted,  was  of  white  satin,  covered  with 
Duchesse  point.  The  hair  was  parted  on  the  side,  and  rolled  in  a  twist, 
a  la  Grec. 

Then  must  follow  a  description  of  "the  presents,"  so  inter 
esting  to  the  news-reading  public,  after  about  the  following 
style  : 

A  diamond  cross  and  ear-rings,  from  Mr.  Peter  Munderly.  The  solitaire 
ear-rings  are  very  handsome,  and  the  stones  in  the  cross  clear  and  of  great 
size. 

A  flower-stand,  in  crystal  and  silver,  from  Gen.  (of  militia)  Buglehorn. 

A  silver  card-rack,  designed  like  an  open  oyster,  from  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Stumps. 

Two  bronze  figures  (mantel  ornaments),  from  Major  Wagontire. 

A  dozen  silver  butter-dishes  and  a  dozen  silver  salt- cellars,  from  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Blim. 

A  set  of  silver  ice-cream  spoons  and  ladle,  from  Hon.  Snooks  Jones. 

A  costly  pearl  necklace,  from  Mrs.  Shimsham. 

An  enameled  watch,  chain  and  locket,  from  Col.  Oldbumm. 

A  heavy  gold  chain  and  locket,  from  Capt.  Fitz-Burns  Snobbs. 

A  gold  necklace,  from  Mr.  J.  Hardpan  Smith. 

A  brooch  and  ear-rings,  Roman  mosaic,  set  in  Etruscan  gold,  from  Miss 
Blubberly. 

An  inlaid  inkstand,  from  Gen.  Snakes. 

Silver  inkstand,  from  Miss  Susanicus  Windowsash. 

No  one  will  accuse  me  of  exaggeration  in  the  above,  when  I 
append  the  following  description  of  the  wardrobe  of  a  bride 
who,  in  1874,  married  the  son  of  a  wealthy  upstart,  and  which 
description,  given  by  the  giant-minded  Jenkins,  was  published, 
I  blush  to  say,  in  hundreds  of  newspapers  in  this  country : 

The  white  wear  composed  one  dozen  robes  de  nuit  of  fine  linen,  silk, 
Paris  muslin,  fine  jaconet  and  Lonsdale  cambric,  and  one  dozen  of  the  best 
and  smoothest  long  cloth;  one  dozen  linen  and  cambric  and  grass-cloth 
chemises,  and  one  dozen  ordinary  fine  Wamsutta ;  one  dozen  linen  and  lawn 
and  muslin  embroidery  corset  covers,  and  two  dozen  pairs  of  underwear  of 


:*. 


64  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

the  same  materials.  There  are  three  dozen  white  underskirts  and  four  very 
elegant  robes  de  soir.  The  bridal  corset  was  made  of  a  piece  of  the  white 
satin  of  the  bridal  dress.  -  It  had  one  hundred  bones  in  it,  and  was  stitched 
with  blue  silk !  A  white  silk  corset  was  covered  with  a  delicate  tissue  of 
Mechlin  lace.  A  blue  satin  corset,  stitched  in  white,  and  a  pale  lavender 
stitched  in  blue,  were  among  the  orders,  and  a  lace  coutil  completed  the 
list.  Sachets  of  costly  and  delicate  perfumes  were  stitched  into  each  of  the 
corsets,  and  lent  a  delicious  odor.  The  three  dozen  skirts  spoken  of  did 
not  include  a  single  trained  or  full  dress  jupon.  Puffings  and  embroidery 
alternated  with  tucks  and  raffles.  It  took  a  whole  week  to  laundry  them, 
and  four  women  working  every  moment  with  fluting  scissors  and  embroidery 
irons.  The  grand  robe  de  nuit  was  a  wonderful  garment,  made  of  Paris 
muslin,  grass-cloth,  and  the  finest  Swiss  embroidery,  every  stitch  of  the 
work  in  it  being  done  by  hand.  The  hosiery  comprised  morning,  dinner, 
reception,  carriage,  promenade,  and  evening  hose.  There  are  silk  stockings 
in  Bayadere  stripes,  pearl  color  and  pink,  blue  and  white,  gray  and  blue, 
and  other  mode  tints,  costing  $12  per  pair.  Another  lot  of  useful  articles 
of  apparel  were  of  the  Turkish  pattern,  buttoning  just  below  the  knee,  and 
with  ribbons  to  match. 

In  a  country  like  this,  a  country  of  republican  institutions, 
a  country  where  born  rulers  and  titled  families  are  unknown, 
must  we  grovel  so  low  as  to  worship  not  only  a  rich  bride,  but 
also  the  toes  of  her  stockings  ?  For  shame  !  Let  the  respect 
able  press  of  the  country  decry  this  hideous  flunkeyism.  Shades 
of  our  grandmothers !  I  never  so  thirsted  to  see  the  plain  old- 
fashioned  women  of  other  days  in  their  home-made  flannel 
dresses,  as  when  I  read  the  smaller  than  puerile  jargon  I  have 
just  quoted  1  O  Jenkins,  Jenkins,  Jenkins !  Get  thee  to  a 
cemetery. 


THE   EDITORIAL   ROOMS.  65 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE   EDITORIAL    ROOMS. 

THE  owner  or  " proprietor"  of  a  newspaper  is  not  always 
the  editor,  either  in  name  or  in  fact.  He  may  be  the 
business  manager,  devoting  his  whole  time  to  the  counting- 
room  ;  he  may  be  his  own  foreman  of  the  composing-room ; 
he  may  be  his  own  Managing  Editor's  assistant ;  he  may  be  the 
very  reverse  of  a  literary  man,  or  editor,  with  but  a  vague  and 
imperfect  notion  of  the  mysteries  of  the  paste-pot  and  scissors. 
Yet,  by  virtue  of  his  ownership,  he  is  The  Editor,  generally ; 
and,  more  still,  he  dictates  the  abstract  sentiments  and  general 
tone  of  his  paper,  as  he  certainly  has  a  right  to  do.  He  of 
course  employs  a  Managing  Editor, — unless  he  acts  as  such  him 
self, — who  is  the  supreme  authority  in  the  editorial  rooms ;  who 
says  what  shall  go  into  the  columns  of  the  paper  and  what  shall 
not ;  who  says  how  this  shall  be  done  and  how  that  shall  not 
be  done ;  who  organizes  and  reorganizes  his  department ;  who 
engages  his  assistants,  agreeing  with  them  as  to  their  salaries, 
and  who  also  dissevers  their  connection  with  the  paper  when 
ever,  in  his  judgment,  their  services  are  of  insufficient  value  or 
their  places  may  be  filled  by  more  efficient  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  owner  or  one  of  the  owners  of  a 
paper  is  often  The  Editor  in  fact,  as  well  as  by  courtesy.  He 
writes  for,  "works  on,"  the  paper;  but,  as  he  cannot  give  his 
attention  to  every  detail,  he,  too,  employs  a  Managing  Editor, 
thus  leaving  his  own  mind  more  free  for  the  preparation  of 
elaborate  editorials,  which  often  require  much  research,  involv 
ing  careful  examination  of  voluminous  statistics,  as  well  as 
much  thought.  The  Editor  himself  usually  writes  the  leaders, 
6*  E 


66  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

or  some  of  them,  when  he  can,  but  has  a  Managing  Editor  who 
can  readily  do  it  when  he  himself  is  absent,  ill,  or  not  in  the 
mood  for  writing.  Horace  Greeley,  for  example,  was  The 
Editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  as  well  as  one  of  its  propri 
etors  ;  so  was  George  D.  Prentice,  of  the  Louisville  Journal ; 
so  was  Henry  J.  Raymond,  of  the  New  York  Times ;  so  is" 
Charles  A.  Dana,  of  the  New  York  Sun;  Manton  Marble, 
of  the  World;  "Sam"  Bowles,  of  the  Springfield  Repub 
lican. 

Before  treating  of  the  details  of  editorial  work,  —  which  I 
ought  to  be  able  to  give  from  my  own  experience,  —  I  shall 
again  quote  briefly  from  Mr.  Cummings's  sketches  of  the  inside 
workings  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  published  a  few  years  ago 
in  Packard' 's  Monthly. 

Young  (John  Russell  Young,  at  that  time  the  Managing  Editor  of  the 
Tribune]  is  a  strict  disciplinarian.  He  runs  the  editorial  department  like 
a  machine.  Every  clog  strikes  its  groove  with  punctual  regularity.  When 
he  is  absent,  his  duties  fall  on  Mr.  John  R.  G.  Hassard.  If  Hassard  is 
missing,  Mr.  Cummings  takes  the  manager's  chair;  and  so  perfect  does 
everything  jibe,  that  if  all  the  editors  were  absent,  the  oldest  reporter,  like 
the  senior  sergeant  of  a  company  destitute  of  commissioned  officers,  would 
take  charge.  An  editorial  council  is  held  in  the  Managing  Editor's  room 
every  day,  between  the  hours  of  I  and  2  P.  M.  Mr.  Young  presides. 
When  all  are  seated,  Mr.  Young  nervously  dances  around  his  desk  for  forty 
seconds,  and  then  dumps  on  the  table  a  basket  piled  with  manuscripts, 
memoranda  and  newspaper  clippings.  While  these  are  being  assorted  a 
running  fire  of  gossip  springs  up,  and  jokes  fly  about  the  table.  The  pile 
being  assorted,  business  begins.  Mr.  Young  picks  up  a  newspaper  slip, 
looks  at  it  a  second,  taps  it  with  a  scurvy  pair  of  scissors,  and  says : 

"  Now,  this  Associated  Press  dispatch  is  evidently  a  lie." 

Here  the  slip  is  crumpled  up,  rolled  briskly  into  a  little  ball  between  the 
palms  of  his  hands,  and  then  tossed  into  the  waste-basket.  A  copy  of  the 
World  goes  spinning  across  the  table  to  Cummings,  with  the  remark  : 

"  I  think  the  World  beat  you  in  its  account  of  that  murder  this  morning." 


THE  EDITORIAL   ROOMS.  6/ 

"  That 's  very  probable ;  but  we  beat  them  on  the  fire  and  a  murder  in 
Weehawken,"  Cummings  replies. 

Young  here  seizes  a  pile  of  manuscript  and  hands  it  over  to  Hassard, 
without  a  word.  On  the  back  of  the  pile  is  written : 

"  Mr.  H.,  please  read,  and  report.  J.  R.  Y." 

Another  glance  at  a  memorandum,  and  McEwen  is  told  to  telegraph 
Smalley,  in  London,  to  send  a  man  to  Roumania  immediately,  to  watch  the 
insurrection  there.  "  And  ask  *  *  *  *,  in  Constantinople,  if  there  is  any 
truth  in  the  report  from  Washington  that  the  Turks  are  about  to  withdraw 
from  Crete.  Use  the  cipher." 

Both  orders  are  directly  filled,  a  bell-cord  is  jerked,  and  in  one  minute  a 
Tribune  boy  is  trotting  to  the  telegraph  office  with  despatches  for  London 
and  Constantinople  in  his  pocket.  A  pile  of  foreign  letters,  ranging  from 
Chili  to  Japan,  via  Europe,  is  tossed  to  Schem,  accompanied  with  the  words  : 

"  Oh,  Schem,  I  want  an  editorial  from  you  to-night  on  Louis  Napoleon's 
suppression  of  La  Lanterne  /" 

Each  editor  is  then  asked  for  his  report  of  the  previous  day's  labor,  after 
which  suggestions  from  every  one  present  are  in  order.  The  meeting  is 
then  dismissed.  The  editors  pass  out  the  door,  through  the  city  apartment 
into  the  main  editorial  room,  and  drift  to  their  desks.  In  ten  minutes  a 
half  dozen  pens  are  vigorously  scratching  out  ideas  for  the  next  day's  issue. 
The  child  is  in  embryo,  and  will  be  born  in  the  morning.  Everything  will 
move  with  the  regularity  of  clock-work.  The  editorial  room  resembles  a 
lurking-place  for  owls ;  the  ceiling  is  low,  the  floor  is  dirty ;  a  dozen  rickety 
cane-bottomed  arm-chairs,  with  high  backs,  three  cases  filled  with  books  of 
reference,  ten  old  desks,  spattered  with  ink,  two  cabinets,  a  chained  copy 
of  the  Tribune  Almanac,  complete,  and  a  dozen  old  pictures,  give  an  idea 
of  a  rushing  business,  with  an  occasional  dash  at  the  fine  arts." 

Having  thus  quoted  from  Mr.  Cummings' s  description  of  the 
editorial  rooms  of  a  representative  daily  paper,  I  may  next  de 
vote  a  chapter  to  the  routine  work  of  an  editor. 


68  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

EDITORS'    WORK. 

COME  with  "us"  and  see  "a  day's  work"  on  an  afternoon 
or  evening  paper.  We  are  going  right  now  to  our  office. 
We  don't  saunter  along  like  aristocratic  people  who  never 
think  of  breakfasting  before  ten  or  eleven  o'clock.  We  work. 
We  must  have  our  breakfast  by  seven,  and  if  the  big  church-bell 
near  the  office  strikes  eight  while  our  feet  are  on  the  third  flight 
of  stairs,  we  feel  that  we  are  not  a  moment  too  early.  Our  usual 
time  is  eight,  and  we  have  exactly  as  much  work  to  do  as  we 
can  do  between  that  hour  and  ten,  at  which  time  the  "outside  " 
goes  to  press.  If  we  are  five  minutes  late,  we  feel  the  extra 
"  hurry  "  all  day. 

We  enter  the  sanctum,  take  off  our  coat  and  hat  and  hang 
them  in  a  gloomy  closet,  whence  we  take  a  lighter  coat,  of 
dilapidated  appearance,  and  put  it  on.  This  is  done  in  five 
seconds,  after  which  we  drop  into  our  chair,  at  a  long,  flat 
writing-table  in  the  center  of  the  room,  on  which  are  numerous 
exchanges,  all  neatly  spread  out  from  their  two  or  three  final 
folds  and  laid  in  a  pile.  This  has  been  done  by  the  Boy,  who 
also  removed  the  wrappers ;  and  he  now  stands  at  one  end  of 
the  table,  waiting  for  the  day's  active  business  to  begin. 

Now,  sit  down,  spectator,  and  watch  us;  but  don't  say  a 
word  to  interrupt  us.  We  can't  bear  a  bore. 

"  Where  'n  the  devil 's  my  scissors?"  we  sing  out,  with  no 
time  for  correct  verbal  syntax. 

Before  us  are  some  copy-paper ;  three  inkstands,  one  with  no 
ink  in  it ;  a  paste-pot,  freshly  filled  by  that  Boy ;  three  red  pen 
holders,  only  one  of  which  has  a  pen  in  it ;  a  whole  pencil  and 


EDITORS   WORK.  69 

a  piece  of  one  only  one  inch  long ;  a  clean  blotter,  one  less 
clean,  one  nearly  used  up,  and  one  hideously  defaced ;  a  paper- 
cutter  ;  some  paper-weights ;  but  —  no  scissors.  Who  could 
edit  a  paper  ten  minutes  without  scissors  ! 

"Here!" 

It  is  the  Boy  who  speaks,  and  who,  starting  as  if  from  a  dream, 
dashes  our  scissors  upon  the  table  before  us.  He  has  been  ab 
stractedly  clipping  his  finger-nails  with  that  sacred  instrument ! 

We  scowl  at  him,  then  —  go  to  work. 

Not  at  writing.  An  editor  is  not  always  writing.  True,  we 
take  from  our  drawer  an  editorial  headed,  "  The  Rapid  Devel 
opment  of  Science,"  and  send  it  up  to  the  composing-room 
by  the  Boy ;  but  that  was  written  last  night,  when  we  dropped 
in,  long  after  the  last  edition  of  our  paper  went  to  press.  Our 
first  work  this  morning  is  paste-pot-and-scissors  work;  it  is  to 
compile  a  column  headed : 

ACCIDENT  AND  CRIME. 

A  portion  of  it  has  already  been  prepared,  from  late  ex 
changes  of  yesterday,  and  we  must  now  add  the  freshest  items 
to  the  department,  and  so  complete  it  for  our  outside.  We  first 
run  our  scissors  through  a  paragraph  relating  to  an  accident  of 
which  we  yesterday  prepared  a  condensed  account.  We  see 
by  it  that  the  victim  has  since  died  of  his  injuries. 

"  Sonny !  "  we  sing  out,  and  the  Boy  starts. 

"  Run  up  to  the  foreman  and  ask  him  to  send  down  a  proof 
of  the  '  Accident  and  Crime  '  I  gave  him  last  night." 

The  Boy  flies  away  on  his  errand.  When  the  proof  comes 
down  we  shall  simply  place  a  caret  (/\)  at  the  end  of  the  para 
graph  in  question,  and  write  on  the  white  margin  something 
like  this:  "  The  unfortunate  man  died  a  few  hours  after  the 
accident." 


7O  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

We  have  an  exchange  in  our  hand,  which  'we  perceive  to  be 
the  Reading  (Pa.)  Eagle,  and  in  it  we  find  this  paragraph  : 

RAILROAD  ACCIDENT. 

AN  AGED  COUPLE  INSTANTLY  KILLED  ON  THE  EAST  PENN 
SYLVANIA  -RAILROAD. 

This  morning,  about  fifteen  minutes  past  7  o'clock,  a  very  sad  accident 
occurred  at  "  Bernhart's  Crossing,"  near  Engel's  Hotel,  Muhlenberg  town 
ship,  on  the  line  of  the  East  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  Henry  Leitheiser  and 
Susan,  his  wife,  both  aged  about  sixty  years,  who  resided  about  a  mile  this 
side  of  "  Blind  Hartman's  tavern,"  were  on  their  way  to  Reading  with  a 
load  of  potatoes,  and  they  reached  the  railroad  just  as  the  mail  train  No.  2 
came  along,  the  engine  of  which  collided  with  their  vehicle.  The  engine 
struck  the  forepart  of  the  wagon,  completely  demolishing  it,  and  threw  the 
aged  couple  upon  the  railroad  and  instantly  killed  them.  Their  clothing 
was  caught  by  the  car-boxes,  which  whirled  them  around  and  dragged  them 
ten  or  fifteen  feet,  during  which  the  aged  lady  had  an  arm  taken  off  by  the 
wheels  passing  over  it,  and  her  husband  had  his  leg  run  over  at  the  ankle. 
The  scalp  of  Mrs.  Leitheiser  was  also  removed  during  the  accident.  The 
engineer  immediately  stopped  the  train  and  backed  to  the  scene  of  the 
accident,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leitheiser  were  both  found  dead,  and  the 
horse  which  had  been  attached  to  the  vehicle  was  lying  beside  the  road, 
with  life  also  extinct.  Within  half  an  hour  after  the  accident  an  undertaker 
conveyed  the  bodies  back  to  the  former  home  of  the  deceased.  It  is  stated 
that  not  the  slightest  blame  is  attached,  on  account  of  the  accident,  to  either 
engineer  or  conductor,  as  the  usual  signal  was  given  upon  approaching  the 
crossing.  A  man  by  the  name  of  Paul,  and  Henry  Leitheiser,  a  son  of  the 
deceased,  were  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  crossing,  and  they  distinctly 
heard  the  whistle  of  the  engine,  but  the  aged  couple  were  partially  deaf, 
and  evidently  did  not  hear  the  signal. 

This  is  an  important  "Accident  "  item,  and  we  have  not  had 
it  by  telegraph.  But  then  Reading  is,  for  example,  "distant 
from  us,  and  here  the  accident  will  not  possess  the  same  interest 
as  in  Reading,  near  which  city  it  occurred.  Besides,  we  glean 
scores  of  such  items  from  our  exchanges  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  all  must  be  condensed.  Having  read  the  paragraph 
hastily,  we  do  not  attempt  to  clip  and  paste  any  part  of  it, 
because  in  this  case  we  can  say  all  about  it  that  we  have  space 


EDITORS   WORK.  Jl 

to  say  more  quickly  by  writing  it.  So  we  clutch  our  pen 
savagely,  dip  it  in  the  ink,  and,  after  writing  "Accident,  etc.," 
on  the  upper  right-hand  corner  of  the  first  sheet  of  copy-paper, 
and  drawing  a  curved  stroke  around  it,  so  as  to  fence  it  off  from 
the  actual  "copy,"  we  thus  rapidly  condense  the  paragraph: 

Henry  Leitheiser  and  wife,  each  sixty  years  old,  were  instantly  killed 
yesterday  morning,  while  crossing  the  track  of  the  East  Pennsylvania 
Railroad,  in  a  market-wagon,  in  the  vicinity  of  Reading,  by  being  run  over 
by  a  mail-train,  and  their  bodies  shockingly  mangled.  Both  were  partially 
deaf,  and  did  not  hear  the  engineer's  signal. 

We  glance  hurriedly  over  the  paper,  and  seeing  nothing  more 
in  it  that  we  want  for  this  department,  throw  It  aside,  and  take 
up  the  Washington  Star,  of  yesterday,  in  which  we  see  an 
interesting  paragraph  of  twenty  lines,  with  a  full  head  and  sub 
head.  This  is  it : 

TOO  LIGHT  A  PUNISHMENT. 
A  MAN  WHO  SETS  A  BULL-DOG  ON  A  CHILD. 

Yesterday,  between  4  and  5  o'clock  p.  M.,  quite  an  excitement  was 
caused  at  the  corner  of  Twelfth  and  D  Streets,  by  the  savage  attack  of  a 
bull-dog  upon  a  little  girl.  It  seems  this  little  girl,  with  a  companion,  were 
crossing  Twelfth  Street,  when  they  were  met  by  Bill  Coleman,  colored,  who 
was  leading  the  dog  by  means  of  a  stout  chain  attached  to  his  collar.  In 
passing,  Coleman  set  his  dog  upon  the  little  girls  to  frighten  them,  at  the 
same  time  giving  out  the  slack  in  the  chain,  when  the  dog  sprang  upon  this 
girl,  and  nearly  tore  her  left  ear  off,  and  lacerated  the  back  part  of  her  head 
shockingly,  at  the  same  time,  with  its  powerful  paws,  tearing  off  nearly  all 
her  clothing.  Coleman  was  arraigned  in  the  Police  Court  this  morning, 
charged  with  assault  and  battery  on  Rachel  Coleman,  to  which  he  pleaded 
guilty.  After  the  hearing  of  several  witnesses,  the  judge  sentenced  him 
to  six  months  in  jail. 

This  must  also  be  boiled  down  for  the  department  of  "Acci 
dent  and  Crime,"  and  we  thus  do  it : 

In  Washington  City,  on  Tuesday,  a  colored  man  named  Coleman,  in 
mere  sport,  set  a  bull-dog  upon  a  little  girl  who  was  passing  along  the  street, 


72  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

and  the  brute  shockingly  lacerated  her  head,  tearing  her  left  ear  completely 
off.  A  Washington  paper  alludes  to  the  case  as  one  of  unusual  atrocity, 
and  thinks  Coleman  received  too  light  a  punishment,  as  he  was  sentenced 
yesterday  morning  to  only  six  months'  imprisonment. 

We  next  take  up  a  Western  paper,  in  which  we  find  a  column 
" local,"  with  the  following  head-lines: 

SAD  ACCIDENT! 

SUDDEN  AND  VIOLENT  DEATH  OF  A  WELL-KNOWN  CITIZEN. 
It  begins  thus : 

It  is  with  pain  that  the  announcement  is  made  of  a  sad  bereavement  that 
has  befallen  this  community  and  one  of  its  most  esteemed  families.  Hon. 
William  Martin  — 

We  run  over  the  whole  article,  which,  by  the  way,  embraces 
a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  the  deceased,  and  find  we  can  thus 
succinctly  dispose  of  it : 

Hon.  William  Martin,  a  prominent  citizen  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  an  ex- 
member  of  Congress,  fell  from  the  eastern  abutment  of  the  railroad  bridge 
over  the  Miami  River,  a  short  distance  west  of  that  city,  on  Wednesday,  and 
was  instantly  killed.  He  was  nearly  seventy  years  old. 

Just  now  the  door  opens,  and  the  Boy  hurries  in,  saying : 

"Mr.  Craig"  (the  foreman)  "says  he'd  like  to  have  the 
rest  of  the  '  Accidents  '  as  soon  as  possible." 

"In  five  minutes,  tell  him." 

The  Boy  vanishes,  and  our  scissors  dive  into  the  local  columns 
of  the  New  York  Sun,  and  come  out  with  a  dozen-line  nonpareil 
local,  with  a  top  head,  which  we  thus  dispose  of,  very  coolly 
appropriating  a  few  lines  of  the  Sun's  own  language,  a  liberty 
we  do  not  hesitate  to  take,  because  it  is  reciprocal,  and  that 
journal  will  get  even  with  us  inside  of  a  week : 


EDITORS'   WORK. 


A   POLICEMAN   ON  THE-RAMPACE. 

il  complaints  of  brutality  arc  lodged-. 


»   R°Ser   O'HaLloran,-ef-4he    Leonard  ^ 
e.    A  few  nights  ago,  while  crazy  drunk, 


-fre-ran  along  Greenwich  Street,  clubbing  indiscrim-  , 
inately  men,  women  and  children.  ~Qn  reluming  f 
to  tlve  police-station  with  a  respectable  voung  man, 
whom^he  ha/1  beaten  without  prHyoca/ion,  he  was 
suspenotd  /from  duty  by  Captain  Pc^cy.  Another 
accusatioV  against  him  is  that  he  J&KM:  an  elderly 
woman  /as\she  was  quietly  entering  Tjer  house, 
knocking  out^several  of  her  teeth.- > " 


\CU 


iiut/Una  fii,  t£e  tafce  o^  ficace. 

In  a  few  hours  this  item  will  appear  as  a  compact  paragraph, 
in  five  lines  of  brevier  type,  without  a  head,  and  looking  as 
fresh  and  clear  as  though  it  had  never  been  so  shockingly 
defaced. 

Next,  we  dispose  of  four  stickfuls,  thus : 

lion.  J.  Smith,  ex-Mayor  of  Smithfield,  R.  I.,  was  almost  instantly  killed 
near  that  city,  on  Monday,  by  being  thrown  from  his  carriage. 

Next,  we  find  in  a  Philadelphia  paper  a  thirty-line  paragraph, 
with  the  side  head,  "A  PHYSICIAN  SHOT."  We  have  not  room 
for  the  particulars,  but  discover  that,  owing  to  the  proper  con 
struction  of  the  paragraph,  we  can  use  several  contiguous  lines 
of  the  "reprint,"  and  thus,  by  clipping  them  and  pasting  them 
on»  —  the  work  of  four  seconds,  —  save  an  amount  of  writing 
that  would  require  perhaps  half  a  minute.  Then  our  paragraph 
is  formed  thus  : 


A    PHYSICIAN   SHOT.  —  On  Tuesday  morning, 
F       ./      /  Dr.  Wevill,  living  at  No.  1014  South  Third  Street, 

in   tfi6  fcnce     was   shot  A  by  'Christian  Hansen,  residing   at  the 

north-west  corner  of  Fourth  and  Canal  Streets 

t  ^ 

ufion  Ifte  {attet  6  wife         c%ean<ten  fwo 

7 


74  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

/reviii,  tvnede   tea  na&   <unce   veen    am/iadated,  and  ^vno   tied   in  a, 

cuticai  condition,  dcc/azej-  it  to  fre  a  cate  o^  attempted  £/aG&-meu&nal 

/ '  /  /      //         //  /  if  /¥*?  /  /'         *f  " 

in  which  tie  atiegeA   "  6otn  £/&  anten  ana  in*  wile  wcte 


We  find  half-a-dozen  additional  paragraphs  relating  to  crimes 
or  accidents,  in  various  exchanges  coming  to  us  from  towns  and 
cities  scattered  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  —  paragraphs 
of  from  six  to  twenty  lines  each,  —  and  of  each  we  make  a  para 
graph  of  from  two  to  three  lines ;  and  so,  in  a  minute  or  two 
more  we  have  completed  the  department  of  "Accident  and 
Crime,"  by  adding  in  these  tiny  paragraphs  the  essence  of  what 
we  find  headed,  "Attempted  Murder;"  "Shocking  Affair;" 
"Church  Robbed;"  "Forgery;"  "Danger  from  Gas  —  Eight 
Children  Nearly  Smothered;"  "Horrible  Casualty  —  a  Man's 
Arm  Wrenched  Off;"  "The  Boston  Bank  Robbery;"  and, 
"Suicide." 

"Sonny!" 

The  Boy  snatches  up  the  copy,  and  flies  up-stairs  with  it  to 
the  foreman,  who  could  not  well  afford  to  wait  sixty  seconds 
longer  for  it. 

We  clutch  another  exchange  and  our  scissors. 

The  terrible  clatter  of  the  Boy's  feet  is  heard  on  the  stairs, 
as  he  falls,  rather  than  steps,  down  from  the  composing-room. 
Then  he  bursts  into  the  room. 

"  Mr.  Craig  wants  two  more  stickfuls  of  '  Frivolities  !'  " 

That 's  the  funny  column,  outside.  Thought  we  left  enough 
last  night.  No  matter:  in  the  exchange  before  us  we  see  a 
column  headed,  "This  and  That."  We  know  what  this  (and 
that)  means.  We  run  over  nearly  the  whole  column  —  for 
two  reasons  :  we  want  to  get  two  stickfuls  of  the  best  in  it ;  and 
we  want  to  avoid  clipping  anything  we  have  before  published 


EDITORS'   WORK.  75 

at  any  time  during  the  last  six  or  eight  years.  Of  course,  a  bit 
of  memory  is  necessary,  but  that  is  one  of  the  requisite  qualifi 
cations  of  a  newspaper  man.  In  one  minute  six  or  seven  small 
funny  paragraphs  are  hurriedly  pasted  on  a  bit  of  copy-paper, 
marked  "Friv."  in  the  right-hand  upper  corner,  and  the  Boy 
seizes  it  and  again  "races"  up  to  the  composing-room. 

That  Boy  !  In  our  calm  moments  we  could  not  find  it  in  our 
heart  to  give  him  even  a  cross  look.  He  works  for  three  dol 
lars  a  week ;  he  is  here  at  seven  in  the  morning,  to  dust  things, 
to  build  a  fire  in  the  stove,  when  necessary,  and  to  open  ex 
changes  and  see  that  paste-pots  and  ink-stands  arc  filled,  and 
that  things  generally  are  in  readiness  for  the  terrible  Editor ; 
he  flies  up  and  down  those  stairs  one  hundred  and  forty-six 
times  a  day;  he  runs  out  when  he  "  must  not  be  gone  a  min 
ute,"  to  buy  us  a  cigar ;  and  so  his  every  day  goes  by.  If  we  do 
occasionally  hand  him  a  matter  of  ten  cents  "  for  himself,"  we 
feel  mean  at  the  thought  that,  if  we  could  afford  it,  it  ought  to  be 
twenty-five. 

We  have,  down  to  this  time,  read  and  "slashed"  six  columis 
of  "print,"  and  boiled  it  down  into  one;  and  the  clicking 
types  up-stairs  are  rushing  it  into  a  uniform  shape. 

Now,  spectator,  you  have  seen  how  we  have  "done  "  the  de 
partment  of  "Accident  and  Crime."  Next,  for  the  "outside  " 
we  must  get  up  a  department  of  "State  News."  It  is  very 
true  that  we  did  some  of  it  last  night,  but  we  must  do  three- 
quarters  of  a  column  yet.  We  rapidly  select  from  our  pile  of 
exchanges  all  the  papers  published  within  the  State  in  which  we 
are  at  work,  and,  as  in  our  "  Accident-and-Crime  "  work,  take 
their  local  departments  and  boil  down  from  six  to  ten  columns 
of  "Youthful  Burglars,"  "Immense  Potatoes,"  "Fires," 
"Accidental  Shootings,"  "Deaths  from  Injuries,"  "Escapes 
from  the  County  Jails,"  "  Mysterious  Disappearances,"  "  Meet- 


76  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

ings  of  the  Grand  Juries,"  and  "  Sad  Occurrences."  We  make 
nearly  a  column  of  them,  all  in  paragraphs  of  from  three  to 
seven  lines ;  —  and  the  boiling  process  has  occupied  fifteen  or 
twenty  minutes  of  our  time. 

Ah !  We  promised  to  "  notice  "  two  new  books  to-day ;  and 
as  we  want  the  book-notices  to  go  outside,  that  we  may  have 
the  more  space  inside  for  editorials,  telegraphic  and  other  fresh 
news,  we  snatch  up  the  first  one  and  consult  its  title-page.  It 
is  "Topographic  Views  of  the  Lower  Mississippi."  It  is  pub 
lished  by  Messrs.  Sew  &  So,  done  in  attractive  form,  and  is  a 
i2mo  of  over  400  pages.  These  facts  we  quickly  note  on  a 
sheet  of  copy-paper,  in  a  corner  of  which  we  have  already 
written  "Literary;  "  then  we  place  a  thumb  on  the  edges  of 
the  leaves  and  make  them  "flutter"  from  beginning  to  end, 
our  eye  not  catching  a  single  word.  Then,  more  calmly,  we 
open  it  at  the  middle,  and  read  the  words : 

" — most  beautiful  and  fertile,  with  wide-extended — "  * 

We  close  the  book,  and  add  to  what  we  have  already 
written : 

The  work  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  the  Lower  Mississippi,  with  its  rich 
cotton-fields  and  tobacco  and  sugar  plantations ;  its  level  plains;  its  beau 
tiful  tributaries  and  wonderful  bayous,  v/here  the  fat  and  sluggish  alligator 
basks  from  day  to  day,  half  sleeping,  half  shaded  from  the  almost  tropic 
sun.  The  work  is  written  in  charming  style,  its  descriptive  pages  being 
especially  fine,  while  it  contains  many  interesting  statistics  compiled  from 
accurate  surveys,  and  other  trustworthy  sources. 

The  second  book  is  a  new  novel,  by  a  distinguished  author 
with  whose  style  we  are  already  familiar ;  and,  having  written 
its  title,  name  of  its  publisher,  and  mentioned  its  size  and 
mechanical  appearance,  we  dispose  of  the  body  of  the  work  as 
we  did  that  of  "Topographic  Views  of  the  Lower  Missis 
sippi." 


EDITORS'    WORK.  *JJ 

The  Boy  suddenly  appears  at  our  elbow,  like  a  very  Mephis- 
tophiles. 

"Mr.  Craig  wants  to  know  if  you  can  send  him  four  stick- 
fuls  of  'Miscellaneous/  in  two  or  three  little  pieces." 

We  always  have  in  a  drawer  a  few  miscellaneous  selections 
that  will  "keep,"  that  are  "good  at  any  time,"  and  we  hand 
the  Boy  two  —one  headed,  "  New  Use  for  Petroleum,"  and  the 
other,  "  Scientific  View  of  the  Geysers."  Together  with  these, 
we  hand  the  Boy  the  copy  of  our  book-notices,  completed  in 
five  minutes. 

It  is  now  half-past  nine ;  we  have  examined  thirty-three  news 
papers;  cut  out  of  them  thirteen  columns  and  boiled  them 
down  to  six  times  their  strength  and  one-sixth  of  their  former 
volume ;  and  now  all  the  matter  for  the  outside  is  prepared  and 
"in  hand,"  and  the  foreman  can  "go  to  press"  with  the  out 
side  forms  at  ten  o'clock.  He  would,  by  the  way,  die  of  a 
broken  heart  if  any  miserable  circumstance  should  detain  him 
as  much  as  three  minutes  beyond  that  time. 

But  our  day's  work  is  scarcely  begun. 

In  our  paper  we  have  a  column  of  "Political  Notes,"  giving 
the  opinions  of  the  press,  with  an  occasional  remark  of  our 
own.  We  must  prepare  that  department  next,  and  to  that  end 
we  hastily  select  from  the  heap  of  exchanges,  and  lay  them  in  a 
pile  by  themselves,  the  New  York  Herald,  World,  Tribune, 
Times,  Sun,  Express,  Evening  Post,  and  Journal  of  Commerce, 
the  Boston  Post,  Transcript,  Advertiser,  Journal,  Herald, 
Traveller,  and  Times,  the  Springfield  Republican,  the  Brooklyn 
Eagle,  the  Portland  Argus  and  Press,  the  Albany  Journal  and 
Argus,  the  Rochester  Democrat  and  Union,  the  Missouri  Repub 
lican,  the  St.  Louis  Democrat,  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal, 
the  Detroit  Free  Press,  the  Cincinnati  Commercial,  Gazette 
and  Enquirer,  the  Philadelphia  Press,  Age  and  Inquirer,  the 


f8  SECRETS   OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Chicago  Times  and  Tribune,  the  Washington  Chronicle  and 
Republican,  the  San  Francisco  Bulletin,  Examiner  and  Alta 
California,  the  Sacramento  Union  and  Record,  the  Virginia  City 
(Nev.)  Enterprise,  the  Milwaukee  News,  the  Cleveland  Plain- 
dealer,  the  Indianapolis  Herald,  the  Buffalo  Express,  the  Pitts- 
burg  Commercial,  Post  and  Gazette,  the  Baltimore  American 
and  *S«»,  the  Concord  (N.  H.)  Patriot,  the  Worcester  (Mass.) 
iS^y,  the  Providence  Journal,  the  Richmond  Inquirer,  the  New 
Orleans  Picayune,  the  Mobile  Register,  the  Charleston  News- 
&nd- Courier,  the  Memphis  Appeal  and  Avalanche,  the  Harris- 
burg  Patriot,  Harper's  Weekly,  the  Graphic,  the  <9/w0  .State 
Journal,  the  Uniontown  (Pa.)  Genius,  the  Wheeling  Intelli 
gencer,  the  Toledo  Blade,  the  Sandusky  Register,  and  one  or 
two  other  newspapers  of  marked  ability  that  give  much  of  their 
attention  to  political  matters. 

The  New  York  Herald  has  a  leader  on  "The  Destiny  of 
Cesarism."  We  run  over  it  like  lightning,  dash  our  scissors 
into  the  middle  of  it,  and  cut  out  ten  lines  that  within  them 
selves  contain  a  pointed  opinion  or  sentiment.  We  paste  it  at  the 
top  .of  a  sheet  of  copy-paper,  fencing  off  the  word  "  Political  " 
in  a  corner,  to  guide  the  foreman ;  make  a  dash  at  the  end  of 
the  extract  and  write  immediately  after  it,  New  York  Herald, 
drawing  a  line  under  the  name  of  the  paper  so  that  it  may  be 
set  up  in  italic. 

Next,  we  seize  the  Springfield  Reptiblican,  "  Sam"  Bowles's 
paper,  and  clip  a  four-line  editorial  remark.  It  also  has  half  a 
column  of  political  notes,  original  and  selected,  and  from  them 
we  select  three  stickfuls  in  five  paragraphs,  giving  proper  credit 
in  each  case,  as  we  did  in  the  case  of  the  New  York  Herald. 

We  dive  into  the  heart  of  a  column-article  of  the  New  York 
Tribune,  on  "  Free  Trade,"  and  snatch  out  eight  lines;  dart 
into  a  leader  in  the  World,  on  "The  Condition  of  the  Cotton 


EDITORS*   WORK.  79 

States, ' '  and  pluck  out  a  summary  of  about  half  a  stickful ; 
from  the  Missouri  Republican's  leader  on  "The  Rise  and 
Growth  of  Parties  ' '  we  take  a  thoughtful  paragraph  of  a  dozen 
lines ;  and  fifty  burning  words  from  the  New  York  Sun's 
"Queer  State  of  Things  at  the  National  Capital;"  and  thus 
we  go  through  them  all  like  an  arrow  flying  from  the  bow 
string. 

In  the  midst  of  this,  while  we  are  fairly  bending  over  our 
table  beneath  the  weight  of  our  heavy  work,  a  coatless  com 
positor,  with  shirt-sleeves  rolled  up  to  his  elbows,  a  stick  half 
full  of  type  in  his  left  hand,  and  a  sheet  of  our  manuscript,  all 
blackened  and  smeared,  in  his  right,  touches  our  shoulder,  and 
says  : 

"  Mr.  ,  I  could  n't  make  that  word  out,  for  the  life  of 

me."  [He  points  to  one  of  our  words,  which  at  first  almost 
puzzles  even  us.]  "It  isn't  'constitution,'  it  isn't  'consola 
tion,'  it  can't  be  'consideration,'  it " 

"  '  Constellation,'  "  we  interrupt,  as  the  light  suddenly  breaks 
upon  us ;  and  the  printer  rushes  up-stairs,  while  we  bow  to  our 
work  again. 

This  is  not  all  of  the  departments.  We  must  have  a  third 
of  a  column  of  "Personals."  We  select  and  condense  them, 
as  we  did  the  items  for  the  other  departments,  —  "  only  more 
so,"  — getting  a  two- line  item  from  a  column  report  of  a  speech 
by  Hon.  Zebulon  Smith,  and  a  three-line  item  from  a  half 
column  account  of  the  marriage  of  Gen.  Baldhead,  etc. ;  and 
in  the  midst  of  this  work  we  are  interrupted  by  the  Boy,  who 
hands  us  a  revise  of  an  editorial  on  "The  Darien  Ship-Canal 
Project,"  which  "went  over"  from  yesterday. 

"Mr.  Kenyon,"  he  says,  meaning  the  proof-reader,  "says 
there  's  something  wrong  there,"  —pointing  to  a  note  of  inter 
rogation  in  the  margin, —  "  thinks  there  's  an  '  out.'  " 


8O  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

We  study  it  attentively  for  two  seconds,  and  wonder  what 
we  could  have  meant  when  we  wrote  such  meaningless  stuff. 

"Bring  down  the  copy, —  or,  wait.  Never  mind.  I  see  it 
now." 

We  discover  that  two  words,  as  important  to  the  article  as 
the  character  of  "  Hamlet  "  is  to  the  play  of  "  Hamlet,"  have 
been  omitted, — probably  in  the  manuscript  itself,  —  and  we 
write  them  in  the  margin,  indicate  where  they  belong,  by  means 
of  the  simple  and  useful  caret,  glance  over  the  proof,  and  send 
it  up. 

What  comes  next  ?  "  Amusements."  Last  night  we  visited 
two  of  the  principal  theaters,  and  saw  two  "  stars  "  at  important 
stages  of  the  plays.  There  are  several  other  theaters  in  the 
city,  but  with  nothing  special  "  on  the  boards  "  just  now.  So, 
for  them  we  merely  rely-  on  the  morning  papers,  to  see  that 
nothing  unusual  happened,  and  that  there  was  no  change  of 
programme,  and  under  the  head  of  "  Amusements  "  we  write  a 

third  of  a  column  of  notices.  We  write  that  at  the  A Theater, 

where  one  of  the  stars  is  playing  nightly,  the  house  was  packed ; 

that  Miss  X was  greeted  with  the  usual  warm  bursts  of 

applause ;  that  she  did  a  fine  piece  of  acting  in  the  crying 
scene  of  the  second  act,  but  that  we  think  she  scarcely  did 
herself  justice  in  the  moonlight  scene  of  the  third  act,  although 
she  played  her  part  well ;  and  that  she  was  handsomely  sup 
ported  by  the  regular  company.  In  a  similar  manner,  we  dis 
pose  of  the  B Theater,  where  the  celebrated  Mr.  Y is 

playing  "Macbeth."  Then,  consulting  the  morning  papers, 

we  write  that  the  C ,  D ,  F ,  and  G Theaters, 

mentioning  each  one  in  a  separate  paragraph,  are  nightly 
crowded,  the  audiences  never  tiring  of  "  Humpty-Dumpty," 
"Our  American  Cousin,"  "Colleen  Bawn,"  and  "The  Black 
Crook,"  played  respectively  at  these  theaters. 


EDITORS'   WORK.  8 1 

Then  we  make  up  a  little  department  of  "  FIRES,"  with  a 
small-cap  side-head. 

That  is  not  all.  We  have  a  department  of  "Various 
Matters,"  culled  from  the  morning  papers  —  items  of  general 
interest,  referring  to  divers  subjects,  local  and  foreign,  some  of 
which  came  by  telegraph  last  night.  As  telegraphic  news,  they 
are  of  no  use  to  us ;  so  we  boil  them  down,  making  the  following 
-paragraph  of  a  long  dispatch  describing  an  extensive  fire  and 
the  loss  of  two  lives : 

The  M Hotel,  in  High  Street,  Columbus,  Ohio,  was  entirely  burned 

last  night,  and  two  chamber-maids,  who  could  not  escape  from  their  room 
on  the  upper  floor,  perished  in  the  flames. 

Other  items  follow  in  rapid  succession.  An  extensive  burg 
lary,  an  atrocious  murder,  or  singular  case  of  mysterious  dis 
appearance,  occupying  a  quarter  of  a  column  in  the  morning 
papers,  is  condensed  to  from  eight  to  a  dozen  lines;  and  it  re 
quires  rapid  thought  to  do  it. 

It  is  nearly  eleven  o'clock.  In  a  New  York  paper  lying  before 
us  our  eye  touches  this  full  head:  "  Is  Pool-Selling  Gambling?  " 
We  catch  up  the  paper  and  our  scissors  and  clip  the  whole 
article.  We  find  it  to  be  an  official  letter  of  the  Mayor  of  New 
York,  addressed  to  the  District  Attorney  of  that  city  (or  county, 
more  properly),  respecting  the  practice  of  selling  election-pools, 
and  the  District  Attorney's  reply  thereto.  The  two  communi 
cations  would  make  a  third  of  a  column  in  our  paper.  We 
cannot  think  of  devoting  half  that  space  to  it,  and  we  thus 
dispose  of  it,  writing  a  few  lines  and  pasting  on  a  dozen  : 

,,  o/  JPew  tyjot^, 

'  <7 


ted  a,  note  to  yiJitfaict  &rttc^neu  ^foef/i*.  caitinq  /Ut  atten= 

tf  '  tf 

tion  to  t&e  friactice  oj?  ^e//tna  election -fiooid-  in  t/lat  citu,  and  ad^ina 

F 


82  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 


to    wnat  Atatuttet)  aqaindt   aamvima    a&6    aMiticavte 
iefiju  /«#  to  t/ie  effect  t&zt  "  w-/ieJ/t,et    \ 

>*  Whether  or  not  what  is  called  pool-selling 
would  come  within  the  provisions  of  the  law  pro 
hibiting  gambling  has  never  been  determined  by 
the  courts  of  this  State.  -  The  pmctice  of  selling 
poolo  hao,  I  bolicvo,  grown  up  pmce  tho  passage  »f 
riioactof  i3ji.  It  would  seem  that  the  law  is  broad 
enough  in  its  terms  to  cover  the  selling  of  pools,  if 
it  could  be  shown  that  more  than  $25  was  won  or 

lost  at  any  one  time  within  twenty-  four  hours.-Wrth   "  ^y/^ 

<y(3  6  d-ctltd- 


-  ^ 


V  tfiat  "  it  pains  to  Gtate  them.  -It  is  to  be  regretted  that  there 
is  not  more  full  and  complete  legislation  on  the 
subject.  I  am,  sir,  with  great  roGpuct,  very  truly-,  " 

The  door  flies  open  and  a  boy,  breathless  from  the  rapid 
climbing  of  stairs,  bursts  in,  with  the  air  of  one  hastening  to 
summon  a  physician  to  the  bedside  of  a  dying  father.  It  is  the 
Telegraph  Boy,  and  he  hurls  upon  our  table  three  or  four  sheets 
of  thin  white  paper  —  paper  so  thin  that  it  takes  several  sheets 
of  it  put  together  to  make  a  fair  shadow.  This  is  "manifold" 
paper,  and  upon  it,  hastily  scrawled  by  the  telegraph  operator, 
are  several  dispatches. 

Don't  ask  us  what  "manifold"  is,  but  we'll  tell  you  in  a 
second.  This  is  an  Associated  Press  dispatch.  Half-a-dozen 
papers  in  this  city,  whose  proprietors  equally  share  the  expenses, 
must  each  have  a  copy  of  it,  and  simultaneously.  But  to  write 
out  that  number  of  copies  too  much  time  would  be  absorbed 
and  too  many  clerks  would  have  to  be  employed.  So,  the 
telegraph  man  who  "takes"  the  dispatch  writes  six  copies  at 
once,  and  in  exactly  the  same  length  of  time  it  would  require 
him  to  write  one  copy.  This  sounds  like  setting  the  simple 
"rule  of  three"  at  defiance,  but  it  is  plausible  enough  when 
you  once  understand  it.  The  telegraph  man  performs  this 
wonderful  feat  in  a  "book"  of  manifold  paper,  and  when  he 


EDITORS'   WORK.  83 

wants  to  make  six  copies  he  takes  six  sheets  of  black  paper,  as 
thick  as  blotting-paper,  and  fits  them  into  the  "book,"  alter 
nating  them  with  the  first  six  leaves  of  the  manifold  paper. 
This  black  paper  is  so  prepared  with  a  coloring  matter  that  the 
pressure  of  an  ivory  pencil,  or  anything  with  a  smooth  point, 
running  over  the  upper  sheet,  transfers  the  lines  of  the  black 
coloring  matter  from  the  thick  sheets  to  the  manifold,  and  the 
six  sheets  of  the  latter  receive  alike,  and  simultaneously,  every 
letter,  and  dash,  and  dot  formed  by  the  ivory  point.  The  six 
sheets  of  manifold  are  then  torn  out  and  distributed  to  the  six 
newspapers  entitled  to  the  dispatch,  by  means  of  that  lively  boy. 

It  seems  that  the  process  described  requires  this  thin  paper, 
on  which  the  letters  are  about  as  distinct  on  one  side  as  on  the 
other.  It  is  therefore  very  trying  to  the  eyes,  especially  at 
night,  when  —  But  we  are  not  doing  night-work  just  now. 

We  take  up  the  first  silken  sheet  in  nervous  hurry,  for  it  is 
five  minutes  late,  when  the  door  opens  and  a  cheery  voice  sings 
out : 

"Hello!     How  goes  it?" 

Good  heavens !  It  is  that  lounger  and  bore,  Wilkins  Mug 
gins.  To  think  that  he  should  happen  in  at  such  a  time  ! 
What  crime  have  we  committed  to  deserve  this  ?  Yet,  we  have 
a  sufficient  reason  for  not  wishing  actually  to  snub  him ;  and 
we  know,  too,  that  he  does  not  come  in  purposely  to  vex  us. 
He  does  not  understand  the  case : —  has  no  appreciation  of  the 
importance  of  every  minute  just  at  this  time. 

"  How  are  you  to-day?  Sit  down  —  look  over  the  papers  — 
little  busy  just  now  —  be  through  by  and  by,"  we  say,  rapidly, 
bending  to  our  work  again. 

The  Boy  rushes  in.  He  has  been  up  to  the  composing- 
room. 

"  Mr.  Craig  wants  fo  know  if  any  telegraph  has  come  yet." 


84  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

"Tell  him,  yes.  Will  send  up  three  or  four  stickfuls  in  one 
minute." 

"Anything  new?"  asks  Wilkins,  as  he  leisurely  drops  into 
a  seat  and  takes  up  a  New  York  paper. 

"No  —  nothing  particular  —  that  is,  you'll  find  in  the  Herald 
there  the  particulars  of  that  big  fire.  It  was  a  serious  calamity. ' ' 
And  while  he  —  thank  heaven  !  —  becomes  absorbed  in  the 
Herald"1  s  account  of  a  very  common  and  every-day  occurrence, 
we  rush  upon  our  task  like  lightning. 

We  begin  to  decipher  the  first  dispatch,  for  we  must  under 
stand  it  all,  punctuate  it,  and  give  it  the  proper  display  heads 
before  sending  it  up.  It  begins  : 

NEW  YORK,  Nov.  n. — A  dispatch  from  Scranton,  Pa.,  says  that  a  terri 
ble  accident  occurred  there  this  morning.  A  party  of  six  men  were  de 
scending  a  shaft  in  the  B Coal  Mines,  when  — 

The  dispatch  goes  on  to  state  at  length  that  the  cable  broke, 
and  that  the  car  fell  three  hundred  feet,  killing  all  the  men 
instantly;  and  to  describe  the  recovery  of  the  bodies,  their 
mutilation,  the  excitement,  the  grief  of  the  wives  and  children 
of  the  unfortunate  men,  etc.  Having  run  over  it,  punctuated 
it  and  "got  the  sense,"  our  next  duty  is  to  prepare  a  head  or 
heads  for  it,  a  work  that  ought  to  occupy  about  eight  seconds. 
We  are  about  to  dash  into  it,  when  Mr.  Wilkins  Muggins  arises 
and  takes  his  departure,  remarking  as  he  goes  out : 

"  I  see  you  're  rather  busy.  I  '11  drop  in  again  in  a  day  or 
two." 

"  Do,"  we  reply,  cordially ;  and  plunging  a  pen  savagely  into 
the  inkstand,  we  write  on  a  scrap  of  copy-paper  the  following 
head- lines : 


EDITORS1    WORK.  85 

PENNSYLVANIA. 


TERRIBLE  MINING  ACCIDENT  ! 

SIX  MEN  PRECIPITATED  INTO  A  SHAFT,  AND  INSTANTLY  KILLED  ! 


This  we  paste  at  the  head  of  the  dispatch  and  send  it  up  by 
the  waiting  Boy.  It  occupied  two-and-a-half  sheets  of  the 
manifold,  and  at  the  middle  of  the  third  sheet,  where  it  ended, 
we  of  course  severed  it  with  our  scissors,  marking  the  three 
separate  pieces  of  copy  "A  i,"  "A  2,"  and  "A  3." 

Then  follows : 

LONDON,  Nov.  n. — There  is  great  excitement  here  over  the  news  to  the 
effect  that  — 

This  dispatch  proceeds  to  mention  and  explain  a  certain 
diplomatic  complication,  and  concludes  by  quoting  an  opinion 
of  the  Times  on  the  subject,  in  which  quotation  occur  the  fol 
lowing  very  bewildering  words : 

But  that  this  well  be  the  time  nation  entire  into  the  most  rebellious  reli 
gion  hypothenuse.* 

Such  bosh !  Here  is  a  problem,  compared  with  which  the 
Gordian  knot  was  a  straight  bit  of  string.  But  we  must  unravel 
it  before  we  send  it  up;  if  we  don't,  the  chances  are  that  the 
compositors  won't.  We  've  tested  that  matter  before.  Let 's 
see — "rebellious,  religion,  hypothenuse — ."  Only  half-a- 
minute  or  so  to  study  on  it.  Confound  the  dispatch;  we  '11  cut 
out  that  part  of  it !  No  —  we  've  got  it.  We  remember  "The 

*  An  actual  "case,"  with  which  the  writer  once  had  to  wrestle  while  telegraph  editor  of 
a  daily  paper. 

8 


86  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Thunderer's"  stately  language,  and  —  evidently  this  is  what 
the  Times  said : 

But  that  this  will  be  the  termination,  enters  into  the  most  nebulous  region 
of  hypothesis. 

That  is,  hazy,  doubtful,  speculative. 

Delighted  at  our  solution  of  the  problem,  we  write  the  proper 
words  distinctly  with  a  pencil,  head  the  dispatch,  and  send  it  up. 

'T  was  n't  so  much  of  a  puzzle,  after  all,  now  that  we  see 
through  it  —  very  clear,  in  fact,  compared  with  some  cases 
we  've  had,  and  which,  by  the  way,  we  've  had  to  "give  up." 
In  such  cases,  a  wicked  stroke  of  the  pen  or  pencil,  accom 
panied  by  a  muttered  oath,  adjusts  the  matter. 

We  seize  the  next  dispatch. 

The  door  opens,  and  a  man,  with  a  hesitation  in  his  manner 
that  would  make  a  very  fair  companion  to  an  impediment  in  the 
speech,  comes  in,  looks  around  slowly  and  allows  the  door  to 
swing  to.  We  see  at  a  glance  that  he  hails  from  the  beautiful 
place  where  the  yellow  corn,  the  pumpkins  and  melons  grow  — 
we  instinctively  feel  that  he  is  nearer  to  Nature  than  we  are, 
that  he  is  better  and  happier  than  we — we  almost  reverence 
him,  and,  although  very  busy  —  very  busy,  indeed  —  we  cannot 
find  it  in  our  heart  to  deal  other  than  tenderly  with  him.  We 
drop  our  pen  to  give  ourself  a  partial  holiday  of  fifteen  seconds, 
and  anticipate  him  by  saying  kindly : 

"  How  do  you  do,  sir?     Were  you  looking  for  —  for — " 

We  allow  him  to  interrupt  us,  which  he  does  in  this  manner: 

"Is  this  the  office  of  the  Times?'1 

"  This  is  one  of  the  departments.     What  did  you  wish  ?  " 

"Well,  you  see,  my  subscription  to  the  weekly  ended  last 
March,  and  I  then  began  taking  your  daily  instead.  By  some 
mistake  — ' ' 


EDITORS'   WORK.  8/ 

"  Continued  sending  the  weekly?  " 

"Yes,  and  daily,  too." 

"Ah?  Well,  sir,  please  step  down  to  the  counting-room, 
and  the  clerks  will  arrange  that  for  you.  Just  explain  it  to 
them.  It  is  — " 

"  The  counting-room  ? ' ' 

"Yes;  you  passed  it,  and  came  higher  than  you  need  have 
done.  I  'm  sorry.  [So  are  we.]  The  counting-room  is  on  the 
first  floor,  right  at  your  left  as  you  go  down  the  last  flight  of 
stairs. ' ' 

"  O  —  O  —  thank  you.     Good-day. ' ' 

"Good-day." 

Slowly  he  withdraws,  and,  as  we  resume  our  work,  we  hear  his 
careful  feet  planted  one  after  another,  with  awful  deliberation, 
upon  the  stairs  he  descends. 

Here  is  a  dispatch  from  Cincinnati  —  a  rather  lengthy 
account  of  a  street-encounter  —  to  which  we  give  the  separate 
heads:  "Cincinnati  —  Almost  a  Riot;"  but  as,  according  to 
the  dispatch,  no  one  was  killed  and  no  one  seriously  hurt,  we 
do  not  deem  it  quite  worth  the  space  it  would  occupy  in  its 
present  shape,  and  so  "cut  it  down"  to  about  one-half  its 
length,  and  that  without  stripping  it  of  a  single  essential 
feature. 

The  agents  of  the  Associated  Press  usually  exercise  very  good 
judgment  in  such  matters,  but  occasionally  they  overstep  the 
mark  a  trifle.  Then  the  telegraph  editor  of  each  newspaper 
cuts  down  the  dispatch  at  his  .own  discretion. 

We  send  up  the  last  of  this  installment  of  "telegraph,"  and 
the  Boy  comes  down  and  says  that  "  Mr.  Craig  would  like  to 
know  if  there  is  likely  to  be  any  more  telegraph  for  the  one- 
o'clock  edition.  Says  he  has  plenty  o'  copy." 

"  Tell  him,  no— noth'n*  more." 


88  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

We  have  a  column  of  telegraph  for  the  first  edition,  also  a 
column  of  "  locals,"  with  which  we  are  having  nothing  to  do 
to-day,  and  it  is  twelve  o'clock.  Now  we  go  to  lunch,  and  we 
may  remain  away  an  hour  if  we  wish,  but  don't  often  do  it.  If, 
however,  we  approach  the  ofHce  after  an  hour's  absence,  we  see 
the  one-o'clock  edition  on  the  street,  fluttering  and  scattering, 
like  the  brown  November  leaves,  among  the  readers  of  news 
and  the  patrons  of  loud-tongued  news-boys ;  and  when  we 
ascend  the  stairs  we  feel  them  trembling  beneath  us,  shaken  by 
the  throbbings  of  the  cylinder-press  in  the  basement,  that  is 
rattling  off  the  edition  as  if  the  whole  world's  welfare  depended 
upon  its  expedition. 

At  our  work  again  by  one.  Pens,  scissors,  paste,  manifold, 
a  few  locals,  a  few  clippings  lying  around ;  and  the  three- 
o'clock  edition  is  a  repetition  of  the  one  o'clock.  Its  outside 
is  just  the  same ;  and  inside  it  has  the  same  editorials,  the  same 
locals,  with  something  added,  and  the  same  dispatches.  In 
addition  to  the  latter,  however,  there  is  a  whole  fresh  column  of 
dispatches,  and  at  its  head,  in  large  characters,  are  the  words : 
"Extra!  3  o'clock!" 

This  edition  "up,"  and  we  are  on  the  home-stretch.  Dis 
patches  pour  in  between  three  and  four  o'clock,  and  by  the 
latter  time  the  last  one  arrives.  It  is  on  time,  but  should  not 
be  much  later,  for  now  but  one  hour  remains,  and  in  that  time 
a  long  dispatch  or  two  must  be  read,  headed,  set  up,  the  proof 
read,  corrections  made,  and  the  forms  locked  up  and  conveyed 
to  the  press.  We  have  the  last  dispatch.  It  is  a  lengthy  one, 
on  an  exciting  topic.  There  has  been  a  terrible  disaster  —  an 
ocean  steamer  lost  —  four  hundred  people  drowned  !  The  door 
opens,  and  a  man  comes  in,  saying  with  a  glib  tongue  : 

"  This  advertisement  of  ours  —  Brown  &  Co.  —  you  see  that, 
this  slight  mistake  "  — producing  a  slip  —  "  makes  it  —  " 


EDITORS*    WORK.  89 

"Just  call  at  the  counting-room,  please,  and  see  one  of  the 
clerks,"  we  interrupt. 

"  I  did,  and  the  clerk  said  he'd  have  it  fixed  all  right ;  but 
it's  very  important,  and  to  guard  against  its  possibly  being 
neglected,  I  thought  I'd  just  step  in  here  —  " 

"  O,  exactly,"  we  say;  "  but  this  is  the  editorial  department, 
and  here  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  '  ads. '  We  never 
even  see  them.  But  if  you  feel  anxious  about  the  matter,  you 
might  just  step  up  to  the  composing-room  and  ask  for  Mr. 
Rogers,  the  man  who  has  charge  of  the  '  ads. '  Tell  him  about 
it,  and  he  will  see  that  the  correction  is  not  overlooked; 
although  he  has  probably  made  it  already,  as  the  clerk  has  no 
doubt  sent  up  instructions  through  the  speaking-tube." 

A  minute  wasted  by  the  interruption,  and  we  can  poorly 
afford  to  lose  it.  We  dive  into  our  manifold,  punctuate  and 
correct  it,  then  write  half  a  dozen  head-lines,  such  as,  "Lon 
don,"  —  "  Appalling  Calamity  !  "  —  "  Sinking  of  a  Steamer  !  " 
—  "  Four  Hundred  Lives  Lost !  "  —  "  Panic  Among  the  Pas 
sengers  !  "  —  "  Frightful  Scenes  !  "  In  a  corner  of  the  sheet 
we  write  the  word,  "Display,"  to  indicate  that  the  heads  are 
to  be  set  up  in  large  type,  and  spread  out ;  and  on  a  corner  of 
the  manifold  we  write,  "double-lead,"  which  means  to  place 
two  leads  between  each  two  lines,  so  as  to  string  out  the  whole 
dispatch,  and  give  it  additional  prominence.*  Then  the  Boy 
takes  it  and  flies  up  to  the  composing-room. 

*  I  would  explain  that  important  dispatches  are  not  treated  in  this  man 
ner  in  every  newspaper  office,  some  Managing  Editors  thinking  that  the 
style  borders  on  the  sensational.  But  the  work  is  so  done  in  most  daily 
offices,  many  of  them  very  solid  institutions,  as  witness  the  Philadelphia 
Inquirer,  New  York  Herald,  or  Boston  Journal. 

Just  here,  let  me  also  explain  to  the  uninitiated  what  " leads"  are.     They 

are  thin  pieces  of  metal,  with  a  length  equal  to  the  width  of  the  column  in 

which  they  are  used,  and  a  breadth  not  quite  equal  to  the  length  of  the 

types.     One  of  them  is  placed  between  each  two  lines  of  type,  when  it  is 

8* 


90  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

Now  we  have  reached  our  leisure,  you  say  ?  Yes,  the  day's 
work  is  done,  so  to  speak ;  the  last  bit  of  copy  for  the  last 
edition  has  been  sent  up,  the  types  are  clicking  as  the  com 
positors  work  in  concert  to  throw  the  last  column  together; 
before  the  lapse  of  another  hour  it  will  be  read  in  proof,  cor 
rected,  and  five  minutes  before  five  o'clock  the  forms  will  be 
laid  upon  the  press  in  the  basement,  and  at  five  we  will  feel  its 
throbbing,  even  up  here  in  the  fourth  story. 

Leisure?  Yes,  we  don't  leave  till  the  paper  goes  to  press, 
and  so  we  have  an  hour's  leisure  before  us,  and  we  proceed  to 
enjoy  it  by  writing  an  editorial  or  two  for  to-morrow,  because 
some  of  those  dispatches  contain  matter  demanding  editorial 
comment.  This  will  not  consume  all  the  "leisure"  hour,  but 
the  rest  of  it  will  be  absorbed  by  such  little  pastimes  as  select 
ing  from  exchanges,  that  have  just  come,  little  items  for  our 
funny  column,  our  "State  News,"  our  "Personals,"  our 
"  Political  Notes,"  and  other  departments,  for  to-morrow  ;  and, 
yes,  here  are  two  or  three  papers  from  which  we  always  get 
good  miscellaneous  matter.  We  must  make  a  few  selections 
for  "outside"  from  them.  Here's  one  headed,  "Danger 
from  Wet  Coal ;  "  it  begins  : 

People  who  prefer  wetting  the  winter's  store  of  coal  to  lay  the  dust  on 
putting  it  in  their  cellars,  do  not,  perhaps,  generally  know  that  they  are 
laying  up  for  themselves  — 

Yes,  that  will  do,  and  we  know  we  have  never  published  it 
before.  We  lay  it  aside  to  be  carefully  read  before  leaving,  or 

desired  that  the  matter  shall  be  "  leaded  "  —  that  is,  that  the  lines  shall 
appear  further  apart  than  usual.  When  no  leads  are  inserted  at  all,  the 
printed  matter  is  called  "solid."  If  two  leads  are  placed  between  each 
two  lines  of  type,  the  lines  are  thus  thrust  still  further  apart,  and  the  matter 
is  "  double-leaded."  The  general  text  of  this  volume  is  "leaded;"  this 
foot-note  is  solid. 


EDITORS'    WORK.  QI 

perhaps  to-night,  if  we  come  back  to  the  office  after  dinner. 
Here  is  another,  headed,  "  Dutch  Beauties."     We  read  : 

A  writer  in  the  Jewish  Messenger,  speaking  of  Leeuwarden,  a  town  in 
Holland,  says  :  "  The  women  of  Leeuwarden  deserve  a  paragraph  to  them 
selves.  There  is  a  primitive  air  about  them  which  —  " 

Another  "  available,"  and  it  is  laid  aside  with  "  Danger  from 
Wet  Coal."  Here  are  several  others:  "The  Grave  of  St. 
Patrick,"  which  we  find  to  be  an  interesting  extract  from  a 
tourist's  letter;  "Is  Saving  Wealth ?"  "Silk  as  an  Article  of 
Dress,"  "The  Matrimonial  Market,"  "Strange  Freak  of  an 
Insane  Man."  These  all  prove  to  be  good  miscellaneous  selec 
tions,  for  we  find  "leisure  "  to  read  them,  striking  out  a  line 
or  two  now  and  then,  before  the  paper  goes  to  press,  and  past 
ing  each  on  a  slip  of  paper,  on  which  we  write  a  word  or  two 
to  guide  the  foreman  or  compositor,  we  hand  them  to  the  Boy 
with  — 

"There  's  some  copy  for  to-morrow." 

And  yet  you  ask  us  if  we  are  tired ! 

Frankly,  though,  what  you  have  seen  us  do  to-day,  was  not 
the  work  of  one  man.  All  this  writing,  and  scissoring,  and 
pasting  have  been  done  by  half  a  dozen  editors,  each  having 
his  own  special  duties  to  do  —  and  then  they  have  been  kept 
busy.*  One  man  has  been  known  to  edit  a  small  daily,  entirely 
unassisted ;  but  the  smallest  daily  in  existence  ought  to  have  at 
least  two  or  three  editors,  or  it  will  be  as  poor  and  meager  in 
its  matter  as  it  is  small  in  size. 

*  It  may  be  as  well  to  remark  here  that  the  round  of  duties  on  a  large 
morning  paper,  such  as  the  New  York  Herald,  World,  or  Tribune,  could 
not  well  be  measured  by  the  standard  outlined  in  this  chapter.  Such  papers 
are  made  up  with  far  more  original  matter  and  far  less  of  matter  obtained 
by  the  mechanical  aid  of  the  scissors. 


92  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   X. 

B  O  OK- RE  VIE  WING. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  casually  alluded  to  —  not 
Book-Reviewing,  but  merely  \}octk.-noticing,  as  it  is  fre 
quently  done  by  editors  who  are  surrounded  with  other  and 
more  pressing  duties,  and  who  can  scarcely  spare  more  time 
than  enough  to  look  at  the  title-page  of  a  book.  Indeed,  Book- 
Reviewing  is  done,  as  it  should  be  done,  by  but  very  few  papers 
in  this  country.  Most  of  them  merely  "notice"  newly- 
published  books,  and  that,  alas !  too  often  favorably  only  in 
proportion  to  the  advertising  patronage  the  paper  receives  from 
the  book-publisher.  Hence  it  is  too  often  —  though  not 
always  —  the  case  that  when  you  read  in  a  newspaper,  "This 
work  is  the  finest,  most  useful  and  interesting  that  has  yet  been 
produced  on  this  subject,"  the  editor  has  not  read  the  book  — 
possibly,  not  even  seen  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  known  instances  of  abusing  a 
book  to  make  it  sell  —  publishers  generally  agreeing  that  "cold 
praise  will  ruin  any  book,"  whereas,  a  book  handsomely  abused 
is  nearly  certain  to  sell  well.  Heap  a  liberal  amount  of  invec 
tive  upon  a  book ;  let  all  the  papers  in  the  country  condemn 
it  in  terms  of  bitterness,  or  ridicule  it  with  all  the  power  of 
satire,  and  people  will  rush  to  buy  it,  just  to  see  what  kind  of  a 
monstrous  thing  it  is,  anyhow. 

The  following  example  came  to  my  personal  knowledge  in  a 
Western  city  some  years  ago  :  A  certain  firm  of  publishers  and 
booksellers  were  "  stuck."  They  had  one  thousand  copies  of  a 
certain  book  on  hand,  and  they  were  going  off  at  the  rate  of 
about  one  a  year.  The  senior  member  of  the  firm  mentioned 


B  O  OK- RE  VIE  WING.  93 

the  matter  to  a  newspaper  friend  as  very  vexing,  the  more  so 
because  he  thought  the  work  one  of  unusual  merit. 

"Why,"  said  the  editor,  "I  can  give  it  a  notice  in  our 
paper  that  will  sell  every  copy  in  a  week,  and  create  such  a 
demand  that  you  will  have  to  put  the  plates  to  press  again." 

"Impossible!  We  have  advertised  it  liberally,  and  it  will 
not  take." 

"Let  me  try  it." 

"Very  well.  I'll  send  you  a  copy  inside  of  ten  minutes. 
I  shall  thank  you  just  as  much  for  your  kind  efforts  if  they  are 
unavailing  —  which  I  think  they  will  be." 

"  Send  it  up,  and  we  '11  see." 

A  copy  of  the  unlucky  book  was  laid  on  the  editor's  table 
that  afternoon, .  and  the  next  issue  of  the  paper  contained  a 
notice  giving  the  title,  names  of  the  publishers  and  size  of  the 
book,  then  proceeding  to  condemn  it  in  satirical  terms,  declar 
ing  the  writer  to  be  little  short  of  an  imbecile,  and  concluding 
by  saying  that  Messrs.  Brown  &  Green,  the  publishers,  had 
done  themselves  great  discredit  by  printing  such  a  trashy  work, 
and  that  they  deserved  to  be  taught  a  lesson  in  the  shape  of  a 
lively  indisposition  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  purchase  the 
book. 

"What  have  you  done?"  exclaimed  Mr.  Brown,  when  he 
met  the  editor  a  few  hours  after  the  issue  of  the  paper.  "  That 's 
outrageous,  really." 

"  Merely  gave  the  book  a  little  blowing-up  to  make  it  sell," 
replied  the  editor,  without  losing  any  of  his  complacence. 

"  Why,  who  will  buy  it  after  such  a  notice  as  that  ?  " 
"  Nearly  everybody  that  reads  the  notice  and  can  raise  the 
dollar-seventy-five,"  replied  the  confident  editor. 
"  I  don't  believe  it  will  sell  a  copy." 
"Wait  and  see." 


94  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

He  had  not  long  to  wait.  There  began  to  be  an  unaccount 
able  demand  for  that  book,  and  in  two  days  the  thousand 
copies  had  all  been  sold  and  the  stereotype  plates  were  on  the 
press  again. 

"I  believe  you  were  right,"  said  Mr.  Brown,  the  next  time 
he  met  the  editor. 

"  I  rather  think  I  was,"  said  the  journalist. 

Such  cases  as  this,  however,  are  not  of  frequent  occurrence. 
There  are  papers  in  the  country,  of  the  class  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  World  and  Tribune,  the  Philadelphia  Press,  the  San 
Francisco  Bulletin,  the  Boston  Advertiser,  or  Springfield  Re 
publican,  that  employ  regular  literary  editors  to  review  books, 
and  who  "  do  it  right,"  without  fear  or  favor.  These  reviewers 
are  supposed  to  read  every  important  book  that  is  published, 
and  very  soon  after  its  publication,  and  to  write  impartial 
criticisms ;  but  they  do  not  read  from  beginning  to  end  very 
many  z^zimportant  ones. 

The  story  is  told  that' a  literary  man  and  book-critic  one  day 
entered  the  sanctum  of  a  magazine  editor  and  found  him  read 
ing  a  book  preparatory  to  reviewing  it,  when  the  following 
conversation  took  place : 

"  What  are  you  doing?  " 

"  Reading 's  '  History  of  England.'  " 

"What  are  you  reading  it  for?" 

"  Why,  in  order  to  review  it." 

"  What !  " — in  astonishment — "  do  you  actuallv  read  books 
before  writing  reviews  of  them  ?  ' ' 

"Yes," — rather  surprised  at  the  question, —  "certainly,  I 
do." 

"  Why,  I  never  do.     It 's  apt  to  prejudice  one  so  !  " 

There  is  another  thing  that  sometimes  "prejudices  one" 
whose  province  it  becomes  to  notice  or  review  a  book ;  namely, 


BOOK-REVIEWING.  95 

a  personal  dislike  of  the  author.  That  literary  man  must  be 
more  than  mortal  —  but  I  never  saw  one  that  was  —  who  can 
see  unusual  beauties  in  a  book  written  by  a  man^he  hates,  and 
who,  seeing  such  beauties,  can  write  a  notice  of  that  book  for 
publication  warmly  praising  the  book  and  extolling  the  genius 
of  its  author  !  But  while  I  have  known  a  few  instances  of  un 
favorable  criticism  of  books  on  account  of  personal  ill-feeling 
toward  their  authors,  such  instances  are  only  exceptions.  Prob 
ably  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  of  a  thousand  the 
author  and  critic  have  never  met,  and  know  nothing  whatever, 
personally,  of  one  another.  Therefore,  as  a  rule,  men  who  are 
regularly  employed  by  respectable  journals  actually  to  "review" 
books  do  so  with  fairness  and  impartiality.  Indeed,  I  have 
known  of  book-reviewers  speaking  very  unfavorably  of  the 
literary  work  of  a  personal  friend,  when  the  task  of  reviewing 
such  work  could  not  well  be  left  out  of  their  daily  duties.  I 
believe  I  was  once  in  a  position  where  I  was  compelled  to  do  a 
thing  like  this  myself,  or  write  a  lie,  and  I  could  not  help 
choosing  the  former  course.  I  know  it  gave  me  more  pain  than 
it  did  the  author,  who,  however,  ignoring  the  fact  of  the  pain 
on  my  part,  was  never  able  to  get  himself  up  to  such  a  standard 
of  magnanimity  as  entirely  to  forgive  me.  I  have  fully  con 
cluded,  long  since,  that  there  are  times,  in  this  world,  when  to 
be  truthful  does  not  pay,  but  I  don't  think  it  will  ever  cease 
to  be  right. 


g  SECKETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   XL 

« 

EDITORS1  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS. 

r  I  ^HERE  are  all  grades  of  newspapers,  as  hinted  in  another 
JL  chapter,  and  so  there  are  all  grades  and  all  kinds  of 
editors.  As  a  rule,  journalists  do  not  lack  a  proper  sense  of  the 
courtesies  that  are  due  from  one  man  to  another ;  nor  are  they, 
of  all  men,  ignorant  of  the  "conventionalities  of  society."  If 
I  have  not  seen  very  generally  among  editors  of  newspapers, 
and  other  literary  men,  what  any  sensible  person  would  consider 
the  true  gentleman, — not  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is 
used  in  England, — I  have  never  seen  any  at  all.  Like  persons 
in  other  occupations,  they  are  of  various  temperaments,  and 
exhibit  various  degrees  of  cheerfulness.  Many  are  dignified 
and  sedate,  their  minds  seeming  always  to  dwell  on  their  work 
and  on  the  great  questions  of  the  day ;  and  many,  except  when 
hard  at  work,  are  as  " jolly"  as  Mark  Tapley  himself.  All 
have  their  seasons  or  moments  of  relaxation ;  and  I  have  seen 
the  gravest  of  "night-editors,"  while  "waiting  for  telegraph" 
at  one  A.  M.,  give  way  to  a  spirit  of  playfulness,  and  for  a  few 
minutes  engage  in  the  highly  intellectual  recreation  of  "sky 
larking,"  which,  in  such  cases,  usually  assumes  the  form  of 
throwing  bundles  of  exchanges  at  one  another.  But  this  is  no 
daily  or  nightly  occurrence. 

Are  there  some  "editors"  who  are  dolts?  Oh,  yes.  Almost 
any  one  may  call  himself  an  editor.  Any  one  who  can  write 
a  few  (almost)  grammatic  sentence^  and  who  happens  to  have 
two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  can  "  start "  a  weekly  paper  and 
be  the  "  editor."  It  is  as  easy  to  "  start "  a  weekly  paper  as  to 
start  a  blacksmith-shop.  To  "run"  it  profitably,  and  make  it 


EDITORS'  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.  97 

respectable,  are  other  considerations.  A  man's  money  may 
make  him  an  "editor,"  and  make  "editors"  of  all  the  male 
(yes,  and  female)  members  of  his  family;  but  it  will  never  make 
them  brilliant,  or  talented,  or  even  sensible.  The  truth  is, 
there  are  here  and  there  journalists  unworthy  of  the  name,  who 
have  worked  their  way  into  the  profession  by  some  irregular 
process  or  other,  just  the  same  as  there  are  unworthy  "doctors" 
and  "lawyers,"  known  respectively  as  "quacks"  and  "shys 
ters."  In  each  case  they  are  simply  impostors,  disgracing  an 
honorable  profession.  Journalism  is  not  exempt  from  its 
"  quacks  ' '  and  "  shysters. ' ' 

It  has  almost  passed  into  a  proverb  that  editors  are  "drink 
ing  men."  So  are  all  men ;  but  it  cannot  be  ignored  that  what 
is  meant  by  "drinking  men"  is,  men  who  habitually  drink 
stimulating  liquids.  Well,  to  speak  the  truth,  and  I  don't 
think  of  speaking  anything  else  in  this  volume,  I  never  met  an 
editor  who  would  not,  in  season,  "take  a  drink"  of  ale  or 
whisky ;  but  there  are  probably  to  be  found  as  few  drunkards, 
or  even  immoderate  drinkers,  in  journalism  as  in  any  other  pro 
fession —  if  not  fewer.  There  are  many  brilliant  writers  — 
some  brilliant  men  outside  of  journalism  and  literature  —  who 
at  times  "drink  too  much,"  who,  to  put  it  bluntly,  have  actu 
ally  been  seen  "drunk;  "  but  these  are  exceptional  cases,  and 
they  attract  the  more  attention,  and  are  the  more  talked  about, 
because  of  the  prominence  of  the  unfortunate  gentlemen. 

I  once  called  on  a  famous  journalist  whom  I  had  never  before 
seen, —  although  we  had  often  exchanged  thoughts  through  our 
papers, —  and  found  him  in  a  condition  of  hilarity  evidently  in 
duced  by  too  much  alcohpl.  I  will  not  mention  his  name,  for 
if  I  did  it  would  almost  make  intemperance  respectable.  But 
this  man  was  not  an  habitual  drunkard.  He  occasionally 
"drank  too  much  "  and  it  "  went  to  his  head,"  and  he  did  his 
9  G 


V 


9  SECXETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

work —  a  great  work, —  and  his  private  habits  were  nobody's 
business  —  except,  perhaps,  the  business  of  idle  and  prying 
fools. 

Nearly  all  editors  drink  more  or  less;  a  few  occasionally 
"drink  too  much,"  that  is,  more  than  is  physically  good  for 
them  ;  but  that  dissipation  is  a  characteristic  of  editors  is  a  silly 
exaggeration  that  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  have  noticed  at  all. 

Why  do  nearly  all  writers  drink?     Every  physiologist  will 

ar  me  out  in  the  statement  that  brain-work  —  particularly 
when  rapid  and  excessive  —  exhausts  the  nervous  principles  ot 
vitality  faster  than  the  most  arduous  and  irksome  physical  labor. 
The  brain  is  the  head -quarters  of  the  whole  body,  and  when 
a  constant  draft  is  made  on  it,  for  even  so  much  as  an  hour,  the 
drainage  of  power  must  be  incalculably  greater  than  when  only 
the  right  arm  is  exercised. 

Without  entering  upon  the  subject  scientifically,  or  giving 
anything  like  an  analysis  of  the  brain, — which  embraces  about 
six  hundred  different  kinds  of  substances, — I  will  only  proceed 
to  say  that  in  my  own  experience  I  have  suffered  from  a  few 
hours'  hard  work,  both  as  editor  and  reporter,  a  feeling  of 
"goneness,"  of  exhaustion,  from  the  head  down;  a  sense  of 
being  on  the  brink  of  falling  to  pieces ;  a  notion  of  a  hollow 
place  in  the  skull,  into  which  the  air  was  trying  to  drive  its  way 
by  the  pressure  of  its  own  weight,  and  kindred  feelings,  never 
approached  »in  my  own  experience,  by  sensations  produced  by 
excessive  physical  exertion,  even  when  —  as  in  the  army  — 
associated  with  a  want  of  food.  When  this  feeling  —  a  kind  of 
shadowy  sense  of  dissolution  —  comes  on,  after  hours  of  close 
application  to  the  hardest  kind  of  mental  work,  there  is  nothing 
that  so  quickly  and  fully  restores  the  nerves  and  brain  to  a 
normal  feeling,  and  so  effectually  props  them  up,  as  alcohol. 

Night-work,  for  example,  is  a  poison,  constant  and  sure,  to 


EDITORS'  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.  99 

editors,  reporters,  proof-readers  and  compositors,  who,  when 
employed  on  morning  papers,  must  work  chiefly  at  night  and 
do  their  sleeping  in  day-time.  In  common  with  other  intellectual 
night-workers,  the  night  editor  suffers  "with  his  eyes."  When 
I  was  a  boy  I  used  to  think  that  the  toothache  was,  perhaps, 
the  finest  bit  of  torture  that  could  be  devised ;  but  I  at  one 
time,  a  few  years  ago,  suffered  so  acutely  from  a  temporary 
affection  of  the  eyes,  caused  by  newspaper  work  at  night,  that  I 
would  have  welcomed  the  toothache  as  a  ray  of  sunshine. 

The  manifold  spoken  of  in  another  chapter,  as  being  very 
trying  even  in  day-time,  is  doubly  so  at  night,  when  the  glaring 
gas-light  makes  it  a  flimsy  shadow,  and  this-  is  a  fruitful  source  of 
discomfort  to  the  eyes  and  brain.  The  brain  does  not  merely 
tire  during  intense  intellectual  labor ;  it  burns  up ;  it  crumbles 
away,  like  the  clay  and  gravel  of  a  bluff  scattering  before  the 
streams  of  water  in  hydraulic  mining.  I  have  often  walked 
forth  —  tottered,  I  might  say  —  from  a  newspaper  office  at  three 
or  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  such  a  feeling  of  vital 
exhaustion,  such  a  sense  of  a  considerable  amount  of  brain 
substance  having  been  used  up,  and  such  a  general  sensation  of 
nervous  prostration,  as  to  make  the  impression  irresistible  that 
the  system  had  been  worn  down  to  a  point  from  which  it  was 
in  vain  to  hope  to  rally.  This  feeling  is  quickly  counteracted 
by  stimulants,  which,  used  in  moderation  at  such  times,  are  a 
blessing  to  the  night  editor.  Without  them,  the  brain  having 
become  irritated  by  vexatious  work  through  the  long  hours  of 
the  night,  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  get  into  a  natural  sleep 
when  he  goes  home.  At  such  times  more  than  usually  applicable 
are  both  Cassio's  remark,  "  Every  inordinate  cup  is  unblessed, 
and  the  ingredient  is  a  devil,"  and  lago's  reply,  "  Come,  come, 
good  wine  is  a  good  familiar  creature,  if  it  be  well  used" 
I  have  frequently  —  so  have  all  journalists  —  on  extraordinary 


IOO  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

occasions,  stayed  up  and  worked  all  night  and  a  portion  of  the 
ensuing  forenoon,  finally  going  home  at  ten  or  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  day,  after  working  twenty-six  hours  without  even  a  stolen 
nap  of  five  minutes,  and  then  I  have  experienced  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  getting  to  sleep  at  all.  A  morbid  wakefulness, 
accompanied  with  a  very  sensible  feeling  of  nervous  weakness, 
would  take  possession  of  me  ;  and  when  I  did  succeed  in  wooing 
sleep,  my  rest  would  be  broken  and  unnatural,  and  could  rarely 
be  made  to  last  more  than  a  couple  of  hours,  when,  by  all  rules 
of  proportion,  I  needed  six  times  that  amount  of  rest,  and  a 
much  better  quality  of  the  article,  besides.  This  is  a  mere 
glance  at  the  hardships  of  the  newspaper  editor. 

The  prodigality  as  well  as  the  generosity  of  journalists  is 
proverbial,  and  I  need  say  little  on  the  subject.  Few  editors 
get  rich,  or  try  to.  None  are  misers.  I  never  saw  more  than 
one  mean  journalist.  He  had  worked  many  years,  lived  poorly, 
amassed  almost  a  fortune,  merely  from  his  salary,  and  was  very 
generally  despised  by  his  colleagues.  As  a  rule,  editors  insist 
on  living  well,  although  they  eat  to  live,  rather  than  live  to  eat. 
They  are  not  generally  "  big  eaters  ;"  yet  I  have  seen  some  who 
took  in  nourishment  like  men  accustomed  to  great  physical 
exertion.  As  might  be  expected,  from  the  nature  of  their  occu 
pation,  their  sedentary  habits  and  their  often  enforced  irregu 
larity  in  eating,  they  are  more  than  ordinarily  exposed  to  attacks 
of  indigestion ;  although  I  have  known  of  but  few  cases  of  actual 
dyspepsia  among  journalists. 

There  is  a  silly  impression  among  some  classes  of  persons, 
who,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  state,  know  least  about  newspaper 
men,  that  they  have  not  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  enormity 
of  falsehood  —  that,  in  a  word,  they  would  a  little  rather  publish 
an  untruth,  if  it  would  answer  the  purpose,  almost  as  well  as  the 
truth.  It  seems  almost  too  ridiculous  to  be  worth  alluding  to 


EDITORS'  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.  IOI 

at  all,  yet  it  has  been  made  the  subject  of  "chaff;  "  and  in 
circles  of  society  where  one  might  have  had  reason  to  expect  a 
higher  degree  of  knowledge  —  to  say  nothing  of  those  "conven 
tionalities  "  —  I  have  more  than  once  heard  such  humorous  (but 
not  witty)  remarks  as  this : 

"  Oh,  you  don't  expect  to  get  the  truth  out  of  him,  do  you? 
He's  an  editor." 

The  fact  is,  aside  from  the  moral  aspect  of  the  case,  there  is 
no  set  of  men  whose  business  it  so  strictly  is  to  tell  the  truth  as  it 
is  the  business  of  journalists.  They  are  always  seeking  for  facts  — 
G\-\\jfacfs — and  always  guarding  against  the  possibility  of  even 
accidentally  deceiving  their  readers.  Occasionally,  a  respectable 
journal  is  "sold"  by  a  perfidious  correspondent,  or  falls  into 
the  blunder  of  publishing  spurious  news  furnished  by  a  chance 
ignorant  or  too-credulous  reporter;  and  in  such  cases  it  becomes 
a  target  for  the  satire  of  its  more  fortunate  contemporaries. 
Nothing  so  mortifies  the  proprietors  and  editors  of  a  paper  as 
to  learn  that,  even  through  accident  or  inadvertence,  their 
readers  have  been  furnished  with  untrue  or  inaccurate  state 
ments.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  good  deal  of  lying  done  in  the 
world,  and  the  editor  ought  to  be  allowed  to  do  his  share, 
although  I  don't  believe  he  does  it. 

I  should  be  derelict,  if,  while  on  the  characteristics  of  editors, 
I  should  fail  to  allude  to  the  peculiarities  of  their  manuscripts. 
It  is  the  general  impression  —  a  pretty  correct  one  —  that 
editors  are  not  fine  penmen.  I  cannot  better  dispose  of  this 
subject  than  by  quoting  an  article  which  I  find  in  an  old  copy 
of  the  Concord  (N.  H.)  daily  Patriot,  which  journal  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  conducting  for  a  year  or  two  for  the  Messrs.  Bailey, 
formerly  proprietors  of  the  Boston  Herald,  and  the  enterprising 
gentlemen  who  made  the  latter  the  stupendous  financial  success 
to  which  it  attained  during  the  war : 


102  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  that,  as  a  rule,  editors  do  not  write  so 
plainly  as  bank-clerks  or  schoolmasters.  The  fact  is  probably  everywhere 
known,  and  nowhere  disputed.  But  why  is  it  so  ? —  or,  in  the  language  of 
Artemus  Ward,  "why  is  this  thus?"  If  any  one  imagines  that  editors 
write  a  bad  hand  solely  to  annoy  the  compositors,  he  is  entirely  mistaken. 
Editors  naturally  acquire  a  habit  of  writing  very  rapidly;  if  they  did  not, 
they  would  seldom  get  their  day's  work  done  before  the  middle  of  the  next 
afternoon  —  and  haste  is  not  favorable  to  the  development  of  calligraphy. 
But  this  is  not  the  whole  solution  of  the  problem.  The  truth  is,  the  editor's 
mind  is  never  on  his  penmanship.  While  he  writes  he  is  thinking  of  the 
subject-matter,  and  his  pen  travels  along  mechanically  over  the  page  before 
him,  tracing  his  thoughts  in  some  sort  of  characters  which  he  intends  for 
certain  letters  of  the  English  alphabet,  and  which  should  never  be  termed 
"  crow-tracks,"  for  the  reason  that  they  are  not  half  so  symmetrical.  It  is 
a  mistake,  too,  to  suppose  that  compositors  are  continually  "cussing"  over 
the  almost  illegible  manuscript  of  the  editor.  They  "get  used  to  it."  It 
becomes  part  of  the  printer's  art  to  decipher  all  sorts  of  mysterious  manu 
scripts  ;  and  when,  in  addition  to  this  acquired  sagacity,  he  becomes  familiar 
with  the  handwriting  of  a  certain  editor,  by  being  brought  in  daily,  and 
even  hourly,  contact  with  it,  he  reads  it  almost  as  readily  as  "reprint," 
although  it  would  probably  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  he  actually  pre 
fers  it  to  the  latter.  He  does  occasionally  get  "stuck  "  on  a  word,  when  he 
either  goes  to  the  editor  for  enlightenment  or  "  guesses  at  it,"  putting  in  some 
word  which  is  at  least  about  the  same  size  as  the  mysterious  one/and  which 
might,  possibly,  happen  to  be  the  right  one.  In  the  latter  case,  he  generally 
guesses  incorrectly,  and  a  proof  goes  to  the  editor  with  the  word  "  disap 
pointed  "  for  the  word  "  disaffected;"  "  sirloin  "  for  "  saline ;"  "  horse  "  for 
"house;"  "mad-dog"  for  "mid-day;"  "  anguish"  for  "English;"  "obscene" 
for  "obscure;"  "onions"  for  "union;"  etc.,  etc.  The  editor,  who  is  very 
busy,  frowns  tenderly,  scratches  out  the  wrong  words  and  writes  the  right 
ones  in  the  margin, —  in  a  worse  hand  than  before, —  and  wonders  how  the 
compositors  could  have  been  so  stupid ! 

This  nearly  covers  the  whole  ground.  I  might  add  an.  illus 
tration.  Suppose  it  were  your  object  to  get  from  your  first 
floor  to  your  second  floor  as  many  times  a  day  as  possible.  How 
would  you  go  about  it?  Would  you  stop  to  study  grace  of 


EDITORS'  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS  1 03 

motion  ?  No.  That  would  be  no  consideration.  Your  object 
would  be  to  get  up  as  quickly  as  possible,  even  should  you  scram 
ble  up  like  an  ape.  It  is  so  with  the  editor.  His  object  is  to 
record  his  thoughts  as  rapidly  as  possible;  his  penmanship 
becomes  merely  his  flight  of  stairs.  And,  in  this  view  of  the 
case,  one  who  for  the  first  time  sees  a  fac-simile  of  Horace 
Greeley's  hand  -  writing,  for  example,  might  well  exclaim: 
"Such  a  getting  up-stairs  !  " 

Much  has  been  said  of  Greeley's  extraordinary  chirography, 
and  I  have  to  confess  that  when  I  first  saw  a  specimen  of  it  I 
was  bewildered.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  compositors 
not  familiar  with  his  manuscript  at  first  became  confused,  and 
made  many  amusing  blunders.  Many  stories  are  told  on 
this  head.  A  Tribune  compositor  once  told  me  several, 
among  which  were  these :  Greeley  once  wrote  an  editorial 
on  the  progression  of  the  Celtic  race,  and  headed  it,  "Foot 
steps  of  the  Celt."  The  compositor  was  so  nearly  accu 
rate  as  to  get  it,  "Footsteps  of  the  Colt,"  which  certainly 
has  a  literal  air  about  it.  Once  he  wrote  an  article  headed 
"William  H.  Seward,"  and  of  course  the  compositor  did  not 
fail  to  make  it  "  Richard  the  Third." 

In  the  "Life  and  Times  of  Horace  Greeley,"  I  find  the  fol 
lowing  well-authenticated  anecdote : 

The  town  of  Sandwich,  Illinois,  is  a  place  of  great  progressive  spirit  as 
well  as  the  home  of  many  intelligent  people.  It  has  a  lecture  association, 
of  course.  Mr.  M.  B.  Castle,  banker  and  lumber-merchant,  as  his  letter 
heads  plainly  indicated,  and  also  the  proper  officer  of  the  association,  wrote 
to  Mr.  Greeley  inviting  him  to  lecture  at  Sandwich.  His  reply,  as  published 
by  the  newspapers,  should  have  read  as  follows  : 

"  DEAR  SIR. — I  am  overworked  and  growing  old.  I  shall  be  60  next  Feb.  3.  On  the 
whole,  it  seems  I  must  decline  to  lecture  henceforth,  except  in  this  immediate  vicinity,  if  I 
do  at  all.  I  cannot  promise  to  visit  Illinois  on  that  errand — certainly  not  now. 

"  Yours,  HORACE  GREELEY. 

"M.  B.  Castle,  Esq.,  Sandwich,  111." 


IO4  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

Mr.  Castle,  with  the  aid  of  Sandwich  experts,  deciphered  Mr.  Greeley's 
letter  on  the  wrong  rule,  and  replied  as  follows : 

"  SANDWICH,  111.,  May  12. 

"  HORACE  GREELEY  :  Dear  Sir. — Your  acceptance  to  lecture  before  our  association  next 
winter  came  to  hand  this  morning.  Your  penmanship  not  being  the  plainest,  it  took  some 
time  to  translate  it ;  but  we  succeeded ;  and  would  say  your  time,  '  3d  of  February/  and 
terms,  '  $60,'  are  entirely  satisfactory.  As  you  suggest,  we  may  be  able  to  get  you  other 
engagements  in  this  immediate  vicinity ;  if  so,  we  will  advise  you. 

"  Yours  respectfully,  M.  B.  CASTLE." 

Mr.  Greeley's  rejoinder  to  this  letter  was  discovered  to  be  emphatic,  but  it 
still  awaits  a  literal  "  translation." 

The  story  is  told  that  Mr.  Greeley  once  became  disgusted 
with  the  blunders  of  one  of  the  Tribune  compositors,  and  sent 
a  note  up  to  the  foreman  saying  that  the  said  compositor  was 
inefficient,  and  requesting  him  to  dismiss  him  at  once,  and 
never  again  to  employ  him  on  the  Tribune.  The  foreman 
obeyed  instructions,  and  the  compositor  put  his  coat  on.  Be 
fore  leaving,  however,  he  managed  to  get  possession  of  Horace's 
note  to  the  foreman,  and  immediately  went  to  a  rival  office,  and 
applied  for  work,  showing  the  note  as  a  recommendation.  The 
foreman  to  whom  he  applied  "  read  "  the  note,  and  said  : 

"O,  I  see — 'good  and  efficient  compositor' — '  employed  a 
long  time  on  the  Tribune.' — 'Horace  Greeley,'" — and  inci 
dentally  asked : 

"  What  made  you  leave  the  Tribune  ?  " 

'  I've  been  away  for  some  time,"  [meaning  ten  minutes.] 

This  was  understood,  however,  to  imply  that  he  had  been 
absent  from  the  city,  probably  for  weeks  or  months,  and, 
returning  to  find  his  place  filled,  of  course,  could  not  go  to 
work  at  once  on  the  Tribune ;  so,  the  blundering  compositor 
was  at  once  set  to  work  in  a  rival  office,  on  the  strength  of 
Horace's  certification  of  his  inefficiency,  having  been  "out  of 
a  job  "  about  fifteen  minutes. 


EDITORS'  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.          10$ 

The  bearing  of  editors  toward  each  other,  as  well  as  toward 
their  friends,  is  marked  by  the  most  delicate  courtesy ;  and 
those  in  authority  never  "  give  orders  "  or  instructions  to  their 
subordinates  in  an  abrupt  or  offensive  manner.  The  Managing 
Editor  never  says,  "  Do  this,"  or,  "  Do  that,"  as  the  "boss" 
speaks  to  one  of  a  gang  of  street-laborers.  "  Mr.  Brown,  will 
you  be  kind  enough  to  make  a  note  of  this  in  your  'Amuse 
ments?'  "  says  the  Managing  Editor  to  the  Theatrical  Critic, 
handing  him  a  slip  of  paper;  or,  to  some  other  member  of  the 
staff — "  By  the  way,  Mr.  Smith,  won't  you  please  have  that 
article  on  'Railroad  Statistics'  ready  for  to-morrow?" — and 
that  is  about  the  harshest  language  you  ever  hear  in  the  editorial 
rooms. 

Newspaper  men,  while  so  accustomed  to  giving  much  atten 
tion  to  political  matters  as  almost  inevitably  to  make  them 
politicians,  are  liberal  in  their  views,  and  it  is  quite  common 
to  find  an  editor  who  is  a  Democrat  employed  on  the  staff  of  a 
Republican  paper,  or  a  Republican  editor  employed  on  a 
Democratic  paper.  This  would  excite  no  more  remark  in 
journalistic  circles  than  the  employment  by  a  Democratic 
builder  of  a  Republican  painter  to  paint  his  house.  The  Editor 
and  the  Managing  Editor  of  a  paper,  however,  must,  of  course, 
be  men  who  entertain  views  in  keeping  with  its  pronounced 
sentiments.  I  happen  to  know  of  a  certain  daily  paper,  in  a 
large  city,  which  had  been  a  Republican  paper  up  to  the  year 
1872,  when,  after  a  long  conference  between  the  Editor  and 
the  Managing  Editor,  it  was  decided  to  make  it  a  Liberal 
Republican  paper,  opposing  the  re-election  of  President  Grant. 
About  the  conclusion  of  the  consultation,  the  former  gentle 
man  said : 

"Of  course,  Mr.  A ,  as  we  have  heretofore  supported 

Grant,  we  must  not  come  out  against  him  too  abruptly  or 


IO6  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

harshly,  but  oppose  him — for  awhile,  in  any  event, — in  a 
courteous  and  argumentative  way." 

"  Oh,  to  be  sure,"  responded  the  Managing  Editor;  "I 
shouldn't  think  of  calling  him  an  ass  before  about  the  begin 
ning  of  September." 

This  was  in  June ;  and  it  will  be  generally  agreed  that  such 
a  careful  spirit  of  deliberation  as  would  prompt  an  editor  to 
call  a  former  political  friend  an  ass  only  after  three  months' 
gradual  preparation,  is  to  be  highly  admired. 

Editors,  with  minds  nearly  always  deeply  absorbed  in  some 
subject  or  other,  are  sometimes  unconsciously  guilty  of  conduct 
which  amounts  almost  to  "snubbing"  people.  An  associate 
of  mine,  noted  for  his  absent  ways  at  times,  was  one  day 
writing  intently,  when  a  visitor,  one  of  his  own,  intimate 
friends,  sitting  near  his  elbow,  innocently  asked : 

"  Have  you  seen  Booth  yet  ?  " 

My  colleague,  with  an  impatient  shake  of  the  head,  and  a 
general  snappishness  of  manner,  responded : 

"  Good  God  !     Be  still  a  minute,  won't  you  ?  " 

Then,  scratch — scratch — scratch — in  the  midst  of  a  surround 
ing  silence ;  for  he  did  not  stop  writing,  for  even  so  much  as  a 
quarter  of  a  second  ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  minute,  having  finished 
his  editorial,  he  straightened  himself  up  for  a  brief  rest,  scraped 
a  match  on  his  table  and  relighted  a  cigar  that  had  lain  neg 
lected  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  and,  perfectly  unconscious 
of  having  uttered  any  harsh  language,  said,  cheerfully : 

"Oh,  by  the  way,  what  was  it  you  said  just  now,  Charlie? 
I  was  busy,  and  I  believe  I  forgot  to  answer  you." 

Editors,  as  a  rule,  are  good-tempered,  but  their  work  has  an 
undoubted  tendency  to  make  them  irritable  at  times — on  which 
subject  more  wrill  be  said  in  another  chapter.  When  the  editor 
is  right  angry  "  thou  hadst  been  better  have  been  born  a  dog 


EFFECTS  OF  BRAIN-WORK,  IO/ 

than  answer  (his)  waked  wrath."  One  of  the  most  animated 
scenes  I  ever  witnessed  was  a  wordy  row  between  a  Managing 
Editor  and  Foreman,  on  account  of  something  having  "gone 
wrong."  Both  stood  straight  up,  glared  upon  each  other  like 
angry  lions,  and  for  some  few  minutes  fairly  tried  which  could 
swear  the  hardest;  and,  humiliating  as  the  confession  is,  I 
have  to  say  that  the  Foreman  was  victorious,  being  at  least 
half-a-dozen  plain  "damns"  ahead  when  the  contest  term 
inated. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

EFFECTS   OF  BRAIN-  WORK. 

WHEN  a  man  —  the  blacksmith  is  the  usual  example  —  is 
accustomed  to  using  his  right  arm  continually,  striking 
heavy  blows  and  swinging  ponderous  implements  about  his  head 
from  morning  till  night,  the  muscles  of  that  right  arm  are 
developed  to  an  unusual  degree,  and  the  whole  member  grows 
very  strong,  so  that  it  will  do  more,  endure  more,  and  be  less 
seriously  affected  by  injuries  from  external  violence  than  an  arm 
accustomed  only  to  an  ordinary  amount  of  exercise. 

"It  is  just  so  with  the  brain,"  you  will  say;  but  it  is  not. 
True,  the  brain  is  developed  by  its  exercise,  in  the  shape  of 
mental  labor,  and  a  continual  habit  of  thinking  fits  it  for  thinking 
clearly  and  rapidly ;  but  here  the  analogy  ceases.  The  brain 
is  of  so  much  more  delicate  structure  than  the  muscular  arm, 
which  is  only  one  of  its  servants,  and  its  functions  are  of  a  nature 
so  much  more  refined,  that  it  is  naturally  much  more  susceptible 
of  injury,  either  from  internal  strain  or  external  violence.  You 
may  sustain  a  considerable  bruise  on  your  arm ;  you  may  strain 


IO8  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

or  overwork  its  muscles  so  as  to  produce  soreness  for  a  week  or 
two  at  a  time ;  and  it  will  be  no  serious  matter.  A  corre 
sponding  amount  of  injury  to  the  brain  would  result  in  inflam 
mation  of  the  membranes,  brain-fever,  possibly  insanity  or  con 
gestion,  resulting  in  death. 

How  shall  I  illustrate  the  rapid  wearing  away  of  the  brain, 
the  steady  exhaustion  of  vitality,  in  the  case  of  the  hard-working 
editor?  The  brain  may  fairly  be  likened  to  the  steam-engine 
of  a  large  mill.  It  is  the  engine  of  the  body,  and  the  nerves 
through  which  it  directs  all  the  movements  of  the  body  are  its 
belts  and  shafts.  When  the  steam-engine  of  the  mill  is  doing 
its  legitimate  work,  disseminating  power  through  the  great 
building,  sending  the  belts  flying  on  their  endless  rounds,  and 
whirling  the  heavy  shafts  and  wheels,  its  action  is  normal  and 
healthy,  and,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  compare  it  to  a  living 
thing,  it  feels  rather  better  when  night  comes  in  consequence 
of  its  exercise. 

But  sever  its  connection  with  the  ponderous  works  that 
ramify  through  the  building ;  relieve  it  of  the  exertion  necessary 
to  move  the  hundred  pieces  of  machinery  ;  leave  it  alone,  with 
only  its  fires,  its  boilers,  its  cylinders,  its  piston-rods  and 
fly-wheel,  and  let  it  rush  on.  It  is  then  working  all  within 
itself,  while  the  great  body  of  the  establishment  stands  still ;  its 
fires  roar  as  usual ;  the  vanishing  streams  of  water  rapidly  as 
ever  change  into  pent-up  steam,  chafing  like  a  caged  lion  to 
burst  the  iron  bounds  within  which  it  is  confined ;  the  piston- 
rods  dart  back  and  forth  like  bolts  of  lightning;  the  heavy 
fly-wheel  hums  round,  making  the  walls  and  the  earth  itself 
tremble  and  shake ;  then  that  engine  is  wearing  itself  away 
much  faster  than  if  it  were  running  the  vast  machinery  of  the 
mill,  and  it  is  in  danger  of  sudden  wreck. 

It  is  so  with  the  working  brain.    It  is  accustomed  to  running 


EFFECTS  OF  BRAIN-WORK.  10Q 

the  machinery  of  the  whole  body,  and  so  dividing  and  doling  out 
its  steam-like  powers  in  steady  streams.  It  directs  every  move 
ment;  it  says  to  the  right  hand,  "Do  this,"  and  to  the  left, 
"  Do  that,"  and  out  through  the  nerves  it  sends  that  strange 
life-power  that  enables  the  limbs  to  obey.  Now,  when  the 
editor  sits  down  to  his  work,  the  whole  body,  with  the  exception 
of  the  right  hand,  is  at  rest,  and  the  brain  works  alone,  like  the 
crashing  engine  that  finds  itself  freed  from  the  heavy  machinery 
that  kept  its  motion  moderate  and  steady.  Through  the  long 
day  or  weary  night  the  brain  rushes  on,  like  the  detached  engine 
that  whirls  its  dizzy  fly-wheel ;  and  it  is  not  strange  that  the 
tenement  of  the  brain  trembles,  like  the  walls  of  the  building ; 
that  the  brain  itself  collapses,  as  when  the  engine  flies  to  pieces ; 
and  that  the  whole  fabric  crumbles  and  falls  before  its  time. 
The  power  of  the  mill  is  the  steam-engine,  yet  nothing  about 
the  mill  requires  such  careful  and  delicate  attention ;  the  power 
of  the  man  is  the  brain,  and  one  little  overstrain  upon  it  may  do 
more  harm  than  the  mangling  of » all  the  limbs.  A  man  may 
live,  be  physically  healthy  and  mentally  brilliant  after  all  his 
limbs  have  been  cut  off;  but  the  final  burden  under  which  the 
brain  breaks  down  brings  apoplexy,  then  speedy  death.  Of 
that  disease,  which  fortunately  is  no  lingering  one,  probably  all 
hard-working,  certainly  all  over-worked  journalists  have  felt 
those  warning  symptoms  —  vertigo,  unnatural  drowsiness,  im 
aginary  black  specks  floating  before  the  eyes,  a  sense  of  pressure 
and  confusion  in  the  head,  and  a  temporary  numbness  apparently 
of  the  brain  —  sometimes  of  a  limb. 

Undoubtedly,  one  of  the  effects  of  continuous  brain-work  is 
irritability  of  temper.  I  have  seen  the  best-hearted  of  editors, 
on  very  trifling  provocation,  fly  into  a  passion  and  exhibit  an 
amount  of  rage  almost  appalling ;  and  I  have  more  than  once, 
when  working  hard  at  daily  editorial  work,  allowed  myself  to 


IIO  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

give  way  to  fits  of  irritability  on  account  of  little  vexations  that 
under  other  circumstances  I  might  have  merely  laughed  at. 
This  is  a  subject  that  needs  careful  studying  by  physicians;  but 
that  they  would  be  able  to  devise  a  remedy,  except  the  entire 
abandonment  of  mental  work,  seems  to  me  improbable. 

Just  here  it  occurs  to  me  that  a  number  of  eminent  literary 
men  —  so  great  a  number  as  to  suggest  something  more  than  a 
mere  coincidence  —  have  not  lived  happily  as  heads  of  families. 
Shakespeare,  Byron,  Bulwer,  Dickens,  and  a  number  of  others 
I  could  mention,  even  went  so  far  as  to  separate  from  their 
wives.  In  each  case  it  was  the  voluntary  act  of  the  husband. 
Might  it  be  that  the  wives  of  those  and  similar  men,  while  per 
haps  as  good  as  the  average  woman,  failed  properly  to  "  under 
stand"  their  husbands  —  failed  to  realize  the  great  importance, 
to  literary  men,  of  perfect  tranquillity  in  their  homes,  where  their 
wearing  and  chafing  work  is  done  ?  This  is  a  phase  of  the  sub 
ject  that  might  well  be  studied  with  profit  —  not  by  physicians, 
but  by  the  wives  of  journalists  and  other  literary  men. 

Byron  said  that  he  could  not  bear  to  be  interrupted  while 
writing,  and  that  Lady  Byron  (although  one  might  think  that 
she  must  have  kriown  it)  paid  no  attention  to  this  "  whim."  If 
there  is  any  man  who  ought  not  to  be  subjected  to  petty  annoy 
ances  it  is  the  literary  man  at  work,  or  the  journalist  who  comes 
home  after  many  hours  of  severe  mental  labor.  When  an  editor 
has  sat  in  his  chair  seven  or  eight  hours,  straining  his  brain  at 
his  arduous  work,  and  gets  up  almost  staggering  and  goes  home 
with  a  dizzy  head,  it  may  well  be  surmised  that  he  has  need  of 
quiet  and  peaceful  surroundings ;  nor  will  it  seem  strange  if,  on 
such  occasions,  he  does  not  always  feel  in  the  mood  for  going 
forth  and  taking  his  wife  to  the  opera,  or  accompanying  her  on 
a  bit  of  a  shopping  expedition,  to  bend  his  great  energies  to 
the  task  of  superintending  the  purchase  of  a  spool  of  thread.. 


MY  "  ASSISTANT."  1 1 1 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

MY  "ASSISTANT." 

IN  journalism,  more  than  in  any  other  vocation,  it  is  difficult 
to  give  rules  clearly  to  guide  those  seeking  for  information. 
In  the  cases  arising  under  any  rule  that  might  be  given,  the  ex 
ceptions  would  generally  constitute  a  majority.  It  would  be  a 
stupendous  task,  for  example,  to  divide  all  the  newspapers  in 
this  country  into  classes.  It  has  been  suggested  that,  in  the 
"Darwinian  Theory"  of  the  "descent  of  man,"  a  link  is 
missing  —  a  link,  I  believe,  between  the  lowest  type  of  "  human 
beings,"  such  as  certain  tribes  of  wild  Australians,  and  the 
actual  brute,  the  gorilla  —  that  but  for  that  missing  link  we 
might  clearly  trace  animal  life,  by  regular  steps,  from  the  most 
highly-developed  race  of  men  down  to  the  jelly-fish.  In  the 
newspaper  world  there  is  no  such  missing  link.  You  may  go 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  and  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  without  discovering  a  well-defined  break  at  which  to 
draw  a  line ;  so,  as  Darwin,  the  eminent  naturalist,  says  of  all 
living  creatures,  you  find  yourself  obliged  to  say  of  the  news 
papers :  "They  have  a  common  origin;  they  are  all,  so  to 
speak,  one  family ;  they  are  one  flesh  and  blood  ;  one  life ;  — 
only,  they  are  surrounded  by  various  circumstances,  and  are  in 
various  stages  of  development."  There  are  daily  newspapers 
with  a  hundred  editors,  reporters  and  miscellaneous  writers ; 
some  with  only  ninety-nine ;  some  that  sink  to  ninety-eight ; 
some,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  with  only  ninety-seven ;  and  so  on, 
clear  down  to  one.  Yes,  I  know  of  more  than  one  daily  whose 
whole  staff,  including  editors,  reporters,  correspondents  and 
miscellaneous  writers,  consists  of  but  one  man.  He  is  The 


112  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Editor ;  he  is  his  own  Managing  Editor ;  he  is  his  own  City 
Editor;  he  is  all  his  own  assistants  and  reporters;  aye,  all  his 
own  contributors  and  correspondents. 

In  a  city  about  the  size  of  San  Jose,  California,  and  no  in 
calculable  distance  therefrom,  I  some  years  ago  occupied  the 
position  of  Managing  Editor  of  a  small  daily,  an  afternoon 
paper.  Its  owner  was  a  wealthy  politician,  ambitious  for 
honors;  largely  interested  in  such  extensive  industries  as 
mining ;  a  shrewd  business  man,  possessing  good  judgment  in 
matters  of  every-day  interest.  He  was  The  Editor,  and  his 
paper  —  the  Watchman  —  gave  him  influence;  but  it  was 
scarcely  oftener  than  once  or  twice  a  week  that  he  lightened  my 
labors  by  contributing  a  "  leader." 

I  had  one  "Assistant"  (of  whom  I  shall  speak  at  lengtli) 
in  the  sanctum,  and  one  regular  reporter,  with  a  couple  of  occa 
sional  assistants;  and  I  thus  did  the  duties  at  once  of  City 
Editor  and  Managing  Editor.  Nor  had  we  any  regular  proof 
reader,  so  that  the  proof  all  had  to  be  read  in  the  editorial 
room.  We  issued  two  editions  of  the  Watchman  every  after 
noon,  and  gave  daily  fourteen  columns  of  fresh  reading  matter, 
including  two  or  three  'columns  of  telegraph  dispatches  and 
various  carefully-compiled  "departments."  With  no  City 
Editor,  I  had  to  keep  a  strict  eye  to  the  "  locals."  I  had  to  see 
and  examine  everything  that  went  into  the  paper,  as  well  as 
much  that  did  not,  besides  doing  a  vast  amount  of  actual  work 
myself. 

The  work  in  the  office  was  certainly  enough  for  from  two  to 
three  robust  editors,  but  it  was  my  misfortune,  during  a  year  of 
the  time  I  served  as  Managing  Editor  of  the  Watchman,  to  be 
cursed  with  an  "Assistant,"  of  whom  merely  to  say  that  he  was 
inefficient  would  be  an  insult  to  the  English  language  —  would 
be  equivalent  to  calling  it  a  pauper !  Good  heaven  !  It  was 


MY  "ASSISTANT."  113 

years  ago,  but  to  this  day  a  gloom  steals  over  me  whenever  I 
think  of  those  miserable  days  of  toil  and  vexation  ! 

His  name  was  Job  Stretcher. 

He  was  a  lank,  attenuated,  long-legged,  gangling  gawk,  over 
six  feet  in  length,  whose  age  might  have  been  anywhere  from 
twenty-five  to  forty  years ;  and  a  glance  at  him  would  have 
suggested  that  his  proper  place  was  in  the  bean-patch  —  except, 
perhaps,  for  the  great  probability  of  his  being  mistaken  for  one 
of  the  poles.  He  was  "hatchet-faced"  to  the  last  degree,  so 
that  it  would  scarcely  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  was 
necessary  to  take  a  side-view  of  his  face  in  order  to  see  it  at  all. 
It  was  so  thin  as  to  become,  to  one  looking  straight  at  him  from 
the  front,  almost  invisible,  like  a  sheet  of  paper  with  the  edge 
directed  toward  the  observer.  He  was  at  once  ugly,  presumptu 
ous,  awkward,  officious,  uncouth,  meddling,  lazy,  delinquent, 
insubordinate,  negligent,  careless,  ill-mannered,  a  bore  and  an 
ass ;  more  in  the  way  than  useful ;  and,  to  crown  all,  with  such 
an  over-toppling  sense  of  his  own  greatness  that  one  might  have 
dreaded  —  had  Job  Stretcher  been  a  fighting  man,  which  he 
wasn't  —  to  hint  in  his  presence  the  possibility  of  the  existence 
of  a  man  of  a  still  superior  mind,  anywhere  in  the  country,  or 
the  world,  or  the  universe,  in  any  age,  past,  present,  or  to 
come. 

"  How  then  did  he  maintain  his  place  as  'Assistant '  a  whole 
year,"  you  will  ask,  "the  Managing  Editor  having  the  power 
to  employ  his  own  assistants?  " 

It  was  this  way :  I  found  him  there  when  I  first  took  charge 
of  the  Watchman;  he  was  a  distant  relative  of  the  proprietor 
—  but  that  consideration  taken  alone  would  not  have  made 
much  difference  ;  and  it  happened  to  be  hard  just  at  that  time 
to  find  the  proper  man  to  take  his  place.  So,  day  after  day, 
week  after  week,  and  month  after  month,  I  silently  bore  with 
10*  H 


114  SECRETS   OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

him,  till  life  itself  began  to  be  a  bore  to  me.  I  had  good 
reasons  for  wishing  to  remain  in  my  position  for  some  time ; 
and,  besides,  I  did  not  wish  to  leave  the  proprietor  in  the  lurch, 
as  it  was  no  fault  of  his;  so,  I  endured  it.  I  had  only  had 
charge  of  the  Watchman  a  month  when  I  spoke  to  the  pro 
prietor  on  the  subject. 

"  Mr.  Wellington,"  I  said  one  evening,  when  he  and  I  were 
alone  in  the  office,  "  Mr.  Stretcher,  although  a  very  good 
fellow,  I  trust,  in  some  other  sphere  of  life,  is,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  not  competent  as  a  journalist,  and  very  poorly  fills  the 
position  of  'Assistant '  on  the  Watchman.  As  he  is  related  to 
you,  I  thought  I  would  not  like  to  put  another  man  in  his  place 
without  first  mentioning  it  to  you." 

"Ah?"  he  replied.  "Well  —  the  relationship  is  nothing. 
As  you  are  aware,  I  know  very  little  of  the  details  of  your 
department,  and  expect  you  to  run  it  according  to  your  judg 
ment,  purely  with  reference  to  the  interests  of  the  Watchman. 
I  would  like  Mr.  Stretcher  to  stay  if  he  were  a  good  and  faith 
ful  'Assistant ; '  but  if  he  is  not,  get  some  one  in  his  place.  I 
leave  the  matter  entirely  in  your  hands.  Look  around  for  a 
proper  'Assistant,'  and  when  you  have  found  one  employ  him 
in  Mr.  Stretcher's  place,  at  about  the  same  salary.  Don't  con 
fine  yourself  to  the  figure,  if  you  find  you  cannot  get  the  right 
man  without  paying  a  few  dollars  more." 

This  was  fair  enough,  and  spoken  like  the  sensible  man  Mr. 
Wellington  was ;  and  from  that  time  forth  I  spent  most  of  my 
leisure  time  looking  around  for  Job  Stretcher's  successor.  For 
various  reasons,  it  was  a  year  before  I  succeeded  in  securing 
the  right  man.  I  once  went  to  San  Francisco  and  tried  to 
engage  an  "Assistant."  I  did  engage  one,  but  he  did  not 
come.  Another,  who  would  have  taken  the  place,  died ;  an 
other  I  found,  in  the  course  of  a  brief  interview,  to  be  no  more 


MY  "  ASSIS TANT:  '  115 

competent  than  Job  Stretcher  himself;  another,  who  seemed 
competent,  wanted  a  larger  salary  than  I  got  myself;  and  so  on. 
I  even  advertised  in  a  San  Francisco  paper,  and  took  a  run  up 
on  the  train  half-a-dozen  appointed  evenings,  where  at  the 
office  of  a  friend,  a  lawyer,  I  received  a  few  applicants,  none 
of  which  proved  acceptable.  Among  others  who  responded, 
an  ignorant  man  came  with  his  son,  a  stupid-looking  fellow  of 
sixteen  years,  and  offered  him  for  the  position,  saying  that  the 
boy  had  never  had  any  experience  in  newspaper  work,  but  he 
was  sure  I  could  soon  "  learn  "  him,  and  that  in  the  course  of 
a  few  years  he  would  prove  of  great  value  to  me.  So  time 
wore  on,  and  so  day  after  day,  for  a  year,  I  struggled  through 
the  work  of  two  editors,  enduring  an  amount  of  annoyance 
from  my  "Assistant "  that  I  think  was  harder  to  bear  than  the 
work  itself. 

One  afternoon,  when  the  work  of  the  day  was  over,  and 
when  the  last  copy  for  the  five-o'clock  edition  had  been  sent 
into  the  composing-room,  I  was  occupying  a  leisure  hour  by 
making  a  few  miscellaneous  selections  from  exchanges,  for  the 
next  day,  and  Job  Stretcher,  looking  lanker  than  ever,  was 
lolling  back  in  an  old  wooden  arm-chair,  his  tremendous  heels 
laid  up  on  one  end  of  the  large  writing-table  in  the  centre  of 
the  floor, — a  habit  of  his  which  I  detested, — and  he  smoking  a 
horrible  pipe,  I  received  a  call  from  a  distinguished  tragedian 
who  had  a  brief  engagement  in  our  little  city.  I  had  expected 
him  at  some  time  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and  was  glad  that 
he  came  at  so  happy  a  time,  the  hurry  of  the  day  being  over, 
for  I  anticipated  some  minutes  of  agreeable  conversation  with 
him,  relative  to  the  stage. 

The  tragedian  (whom  I  shall  here  style  Mr.  B )  was 

ushered  into  our  sanctum  by  Mr.  F ,  an  old  personal  friend, 

and  the  editor  of  a  rival  paper,  and  both,  I  need  scarcely  say, 


Il6  SECKETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

were  polished  gentlemen.  As  I  had  never  met  the  gentleman 
of  histrionic  fame,  Mr.  F promptly  introduced  us. 

Of  course,  the  presence  of  Job  Stretcher  could  not  be  ignored 

—  but  how  I  wished  it  could  !  —  and  seeing  Mr.  B glance 

half-curiously  at  him  I  introduced  my  "Assistant"  both  to 

him  and  Mr.  F ,  who  also  had  never  met  him  before.  The 

tragedian,  as  well  as  Mr.  F ,  greeted  him  politely,  to  which 

he  merely  responded,  "  H'  are  ye?"  He  did  not  even  rise, 
but  I  was  glad  that  he  at  least  took  his  ponderous  feet  off  the 
table  —  or  rather  allowed  them  to  fall  off,  and  they  came 
down  upon  the  floor  with  a  crash,  amid  which  general  con 
fusion,  and  mortification  on  my  part,  I  managed  to  seat  my 
visitors. 

Then  an  awkward  pause  followed,  and  I  could  see  that  they 
marveled  at  the  extraordinary  deportment  of  my  "Assistant," 
while  I  know  that  they  did  not  fail  to  notice  my  mortification, 
and,  I  trust,  to  feel  for  me.  But  the  silence  did  not  last  long. 
It  was  broken  by  Job  Stretcher.  Not  that  he  spoke,  exactly ; 
but,  thrusting  his  feet  far  away  beneath  the  table,  and  reclining 
a  little  lower  in  his  chair,  he  stretched  his  long  form  nearly 
straight,  like  a  fence-rail  leaning  upon  a  stump  in  a  corn-field, 
and  opening  his  immense  mouth  to  the  verge  of  decapitation, 
executed  an  infernal  yawn,  with  a  vocal  accompaniment  like  the 
growl  of  a  dog,  then  closed  his  jaws  with  a  snap,  like  an  alli 
gator  entrapping  flies.  After  that,  he  articulated. 

"By  jingo  !  "  he  said,  with  a  nasal  twang  about  as  musical 
as  the  sound  caused  by  the  extrusion  of  a  cow's  foot  from  a 
mud-hole,  and  with  a  coarse  disregard  of  the  presence  of  my 
visitors  that  must  have  been  little  less  than  offensive  to  them. 
"  I  'm  darned  glad  this  day's  work  's  over  !  "  [How  I  wished 
the  day  was,  too!]  "Did  you  ever,"  he  said,  addressing  the 
tragedian  with  the  rude  familiarity  he  might  have  assumed 


MY  "ASSISTANT."  1 1/ 

toward  a  daily  lounger,  "did  you  ever  work  on  a  news 
paper?" 

"No  —  I  —  " 

"Well,  you  needn't  want  to,"  said  Job  Stretcher,  inter 
rupting  Mr.  B quickly,  as  if  afraid  he  was  about  to  say 

something  very  distasteful,  if  allowed  to  proceed.  "No,  sir-ee, 
you  needn't  want  to.  It 's  work  —  work  —  work,  all  the  time. 
No  end  to  it!  " 

The  audacity  of  the  fellow  !  this  worthless  shirker  of  duty, 
who,  perhaps,  did  daily  one-tenth  of  the  work  of  which  he 
should  have  done  about  one-half !  who  came  to  the  office  at  ten 
or  eleven  o'clock,  when  I  was  there  at  eight ;  who  talked,  and 
meddled,  and  "  blowed  "  more  than  he  worked  when  he  did 

come  !  I  was  still  too  much  annoyed  to  speak,  and  Mr.  F 

kindly  put  in  a  few  observations  about  the  fine  weather  we  were 
having.  This  gave  the  tragedian  —  who  was  from  the  East  — 
a  chance  to  say  that  he  was  delighted  with  our  climate,  of  which 
he  had  heard  much  before  paying  our  State  a  visit.  I  began  to 
recover  the  power  of  speech,  and  was  about  to  say  that  we 
enjoyed  delightful  weather  —  probably  fifteen  days  out  of  every 
twenty  of  the  whole  year  —  when  Job  Stretcher  put  in,  with  an 
almost  excited  air : 

"  Yes  —  but  you  just  ought  to  be  here  in  the  rainy  season  !  " 

"Unpleasant,  then,  at  times?"  suggested  the  actor. 

Job  Stretcher  did  not  reply  in  the  English  language,  but 
shook  his  head  solemnly,  elevated  his  eyebrows,  puckered  his 
mouth  and  uttered  a  long  — 

"Wh— e— w!" 

Mr.  B almost  started  in  alarm,  and  I  feared  that  he  might 

think  the  strange  person  —  Job  —  not  only  of  unsound  mind, 

but  actually  dangerous.  Mr.  F also  looked  a  little  puzzled. 

The  very  extremity  of  the  case  gave  me  strength  and  calmness, 


Il8  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

an  awful  and  smothered  calmness,  and  I  found  myself  able  to 
say: 

"  On  account  of  the  porous  nature  of  the  soil  in  this  locality, 

Mr.  B ,  we  find  it  almost  impossible  to  keep  our  streets  and 

public  roads  in  a  very  tidy  condition  during  the  rainy  season. 
That  is  one  slight  drawback  —  but  of  a  transient  nature." 

"No  end  of  mud,"  said  Job  Stretcher,  entirely  ignoring 
what  I  had  said,  and  the  fact  that  I  had  spoken  at  all.  "  Mud, 
mud,  mud  !  " 

There  was  another  awkward  pause,  Job  Stretcher  being  the 
only  person  in  the  room  who  was  perfectly  at  his  ease.  It  was 
again  his  prerogative  —  or  he  considered  it  to  be  —  to  break 
the  silence.  This  he  did  in  the  following  manner  : 

He  laid,  or  rather  threw,  his  pipe,  from  which  he  had  recently 
taken  several  faint  whiffs,  upon  the  table,  scattering  a  train  of 
gray  ashes  over  an  exchange,  seized  the  arms  of  his  chair  with 
his  bony  hands,  poised  himself  on  his  seat,  and  dragging  his 
feet  out  from  under  the  table,  drew  his  whole  reptile-like  body 
up,  as  if  suffering  from  acute  cholera,  into  something  like  the 
form  of  a  "  W,"  gave  vent  to  an  extended  yawn,  followed  by 
a  vigorous  expulsion  of  vocalized  breath  in  the  shape  of  the 
cabalistic  word  "  Hoo-hoo  !  "  then  uncoiled  himself  and  stood 
up.  As  his  ungainly  form  assumed  a  vertical  position,  like  a 
bean-pole,  and  his  ill-shapen  head,  with  its  long,  neglected  and 
straggling  sandy  hair,  went  sailing  up  toward  the  ceiling,  like  a 
toy-balloon  released  by  a  playful  urchin,  the  tragedian  stared  in 
dumb  amazement,  apparently  puzzled  to  divine  what  strange 
animal  it  was  he  was  thus  unexpectedly  allowed  to  look  upon 
free  of  charge. 

Job  Stretcher  again  yawned  and  extended  his  arms  in  a  right 
line,  giving  to  his  attenuated  form  the  shape  of  a  dagger  (f  ). 
Then  he  bent  over  the  writing-table,  placed  the  palms  of  his 


MY  "ASSISTANT."  IIQ 

hands  thereon,  poised  himself  upon  them,  like  a  circus  performer, 
and  "kicked  up  his  heels,"  to  the  great  peril  of  a  picture  that 
hung  upon  the  wall  just  behind  him.  The  feet  —  those  feet !  — 
once  more  came  down  upon  the  floor  with  an  awful  thump  and 
clatter;  and  again  standing  erect,  this  human  ape  actually 
allowed  the  exuberance  of  his  spirits  —  so  glad  to  be  through 
with  another  hard  day's  work  !  — to  find  vent  in  a  regular  war- 
whoop.  Then  he  thrust  his  hands  into  the  pockets  of  his 
trowsers  —  which  garment,  by  the  way,  fitted  him  almost  as 
neatly  as  a  coffee-sack  would  fit  a  crooked  stick  —  and  walked 
over  and  gazed  out  of  the  window,  brushing  rudely  against  the 

arm  and  shoulder  of  Mr.  B ,  in  passing  where  that  astonished 

gentleman  sat. 

There  was  very  little  more  conversation  on  that  occasion  — 
that  occasion,  which  I  have  not  here  exaggerated  in  the  mi 
nutest  degree,  and  which  I  cannot  to  this  day  recall  without 
a  shuddej  and  a  blush. 

But  the  worst  was  yet  to  come.  Job  Stretcher  had  one  very 
rare  peculiarity,  to  keep  company  with  his  other  idiosyncrasies  : 
he  never  attended  places  of  amusement  —  probably  concluding, 
in  some  rare  moment  of  rational  judgment,  that  he  was  sufficient 
of  a  curiosity  himself.  I  sometimes  offered  him  tickets,  as  a 
matter  of  courtesy,  but  was  always  promptly  "snubbed"  (by 
my  "  Assistant !  ")  with  some  such  remark  as,  "  Oh,  pshaw  !  / 
don't  care  for  such  things  !  "  This,  in  a  very  contemptuous 
tone,  as  indicating  his  great  superiority  over  the  low  and 
groveling  nature  that  could  derive  pleasure  from  a  histrionic, 
literary,  or  musical  entertainment. 

So,  one  scene  more,  and  my  interview  with  the  famous  trage 
dian  —  which  I  had  dared  to  hope  might  at  least  afford  myself 

some  pleasure  —  closed.  He  and  Mr.  F arose  to  go,  and, 

as  he  extended  a  hand  to  me,  he  said : 


120  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

"Did  Mr.  L "  (mentioning  his  agent)  "leave  you  suf 
ficient  tickets  for  to-night?" 

I  thanked  him,  saying  I  thought  he  had.  I  had  two  myself, 
which  were  all  I  needed. 

Then  —  and  I  wished  that  the  earth  might  open  and  swallow 
me  (or  Job  Stretcher)  up  —  the  tragedian  turned  politely  to  my 
"Assistant,"  and  said: 

' '  I  have  half-a-dozen  in  my  pocket.  Mr.  Stretcher,  perhaps 
you  — ' ' 

"  Oh,"  interrupted  Job,  with  a  clumsy  and  contemptuous  toss 
of  the  head,  "  I've  got  no  time  to  bother  with  such  things  !  " 

If  a  jet  of  steam  had  been  turned  upon  my  face  it  could 
scarcely  have  felt  warmer  than  it  did,  as  I  felt  the  hot  blood 
permeating  it. 

The  tragedian  shook  my  hand  none  the  less  warmly  for  the 

rude  conduct  of  my  ' '  Assistant ; ' '  and  as  he  and  Mr.  F 

moved  out  I  followed  them  into  the  hall,  (I  could  n't. help  it,) 
and  whispered  apologetically : 

"My  '  Assistant '  —  he  —  he  's  merely  a  little  singular  in  his 
ways. ' ' 

"  Oh,  that 's  nothing,"  replied  Mr.  B ,  pleasantly,  and  in 

a  tone  denoting  that  he  comprehended  the  situation;  then, 

with  another  cordial  word  of  parting,  he  and  Mr.  F took 

their  leave ;  whereupon  I  went  into  an  adjoining  room,  which 
I  sometimes  used  in  cases  of  private  consultation  with  Mr.  Wel 
lington,  locked  the  door  and  sat  down  and  cried. 

I  need  not  recount  the  various  occasions  on  which,  and  the 
many  ways  in  which  that  curious  being,  my  "  Assistant,"  vexed 
me,  nor  describe  at  length  his  indolence,  coarseness  and 
officiousness ;  but  suffice  it  to  say  that  his  conduct  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  tragedian  and  Mr.  F—  -  was  more  than  usually 
polite,  for  him  !  That,  however,  mortified  and  annoyed  me 


MY  "ASSISTANT."  121 

more  than  any  other  single  act  of  his ;  but  I  rejoiced  at  the 
thought  that  it  was  near  the  termination  of  his  career  as  my 
*'  Assistant,"  for  when  the  end  of  the  week  came  I  coolly  dis 
missed  him.  I  afterward  informed  Mr.  Wellington  of  the  fact. 

"  Ah,  you  have  found  a  man  to  take  his  place  at  last,  have 
you?  "  he  said. 

"  No  —  no  prospect  of  any  yet." 

"  What  will  you  do  then?  "  he  asked,  in  surprise. 

"  Until  I  find  some  one  to  assist  me,  I  shall  do  all  the  work 
myself.  I  would  rather  do  so  than  have  that  person  about  me 
any  longer. ' ' 

"  Can  you  get  through  with  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  by  coming  to  the  office  an  hour  earlier  each  morning. 
An  hour's  work  is  not  less  than  he  has  done  each  day  for  the 
last  year." 

"  Well,  well ;  all  right,"  said  Mr.  Wellington,  rather  pleased 
with  the  dismissal  of  his  distinguished  relative  than  otherwise ; 
"  do  your  best  for  a  few  days ;  but  it 's  too  much  work.  I 
won't  rest  till  I  have  found  a  good  <  Assistant '  for  you,  and  you 
shall  have  one  if  I  have  to  pay  a  hundred  dollars  a  week  for 
him." 

For  two  weeks  only,  I  did  the  whole  work  myself — and  it 
was  work  —  preparing  and  reading  the  proof  of  fourteen  col 
umns  of  fresh  matter  every  day.  Yet,  after  all,  I  was  happier 
and  got  along  better  than  when  pestered  by  that  creature,  Job 
Stretcher.  At  the  end  of  a  fortnight  I  was  lucky  enough,  after 
all  my  misery,  to  secure  the  services  of  a  capable,  industrious 
and  courteous  "  Assistant,"  and  he  remained  with  me  —  every 
thing  running  smoothly  —  till,  two  years  afterward,  want  of 
rest  obliged  me  to  give  up  the  position  of  Managing  Editor  of 
the  Watchman,  and,  knowing  him  to  be  qualified,  I  was  happy 
to  turn  it  over  to  him. 
ii 


122  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE  RELIGION  OF  EDITORS. 

I  HAVE  certainly  known  some  editors  of  newspapers  who 
would  consider  the  title  of  this  chapter  a  misnomer,  claim 
ing  that  there  are  very  many  gentlemen  of  our  profession  who, 
as  viewed  by  orthodox  eyes,  have  no  Religion  at  all.  In  the 
course  of  my  connection  with  the  press,  I  have  frequently  con 
versed  with  journalists  on  this  subject,  and  have  found  them 
generally  partaking  of  "liberal"  views.  Some  I  have  found 
to  be  liberal  Christians ;  some  I  have  found  to  have  gone  so  far 
from  the  generally-recognized  doctrines  of  Churches  as  to  have 
arrived  even  at  Atheism.  It  seems  almost  impossible  to  write 
a  work  like  this,  in  this  country  and  this  age,  without  more  than 
once  referring  to  Horace  Greeley.  I  believe  that,  whatever 
errors  of  judgment  he  may  have  committed  in  common  with 
the  rest  of  us,  no  one  has  ever  thought  of  accusing  him  of  in 
sincerity  ;  and  it  therefore  becomes  interesting  to  know  his 
views  on  religious  subjects.  He  was  a  Universalist  from  boy 
hood,  and  did  not  acknowledge  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ, 
although  I  believe  that  many  Universalists  do.  In  his  "  Recol 
lections  of  a  Busy  Life,"  I  find  a  chapter  with  the  title  of  "  My 
Faith,"  which,  after  a  careful  review  of  his  meditations  and 
reasonings  on  the  subject  of  religion,  and  of  the  circumstances 
which  led  to  his  thinking  deeply  on  the  rigorous  doctrines  of 
his  orthodox  father,  concludes  as  follows : 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  add,  that,  with  the  great  body  of  the  Universalists  of 
our  day  (who  herein  differ  from  the  earlier  pioneers  in  America  of  our  faith), 
I  believe  that  "our  God  is  one  Lord," — that  "though  there  be  that  are 
called  gods,  as  there  be  gods  many  and  lords  many,  to  us  there  is  but  one 


THE   RELIGION  OF  EDITORS.  123 

God,  the  Father,  of  whom  are  all  things,  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom 
are  all  things;"  and  I  find  the  relation  between  the  Father  and  the  Saviour 
of  mankind  most  fully  and  clearly  set  forth  in  that  majestic  first  chapter  of 
Hebrews,  which  I  cannot  see  how  any  Trinitarian  can  ever  have  intently 
read,  without  perceiving  that  its  whole  tenor  and  burden  are  directly  at  war 
with  his  conception  of  "  three  persons  in  one  God."  Nor  can  I  see  how 
Paul's  express  assertion,  that  "  when  all  things  shall  be  subdued  unto  him, 
then  shall  the  Son  himself  also  be  subject  to  him  that  put  all  things  under 
him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all,"  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  more  popular 
creed. 

Those  who  have  never  given  the  subject  much  attention 
would  be  surprised  at  the  various  grades  of  "unbelief"  found 
among  persons  not  adhering  to  strictly  orthodox  views.  The 
Universalists,  for  example,  do  not  believe  in  a  place  of  eternal 
punishment,  generally  styled  "hell,"  and  many  of  them  ignore 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The  Unitarians  believe  in  but  one 
God,  repudiating  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Son  (Jesus  Christ) 
as  two  other  persons  of  the  Godhead.  These  are  church- 
people,  nevertheless,  but  with  liberal  and  advanced  views. 
Next,  the  "Skeptic"  might  be  mentioned.  He  is  simply  a 
doubter,  as  the  etymology  of  the  word  indicates,  a  person  who 
accepts  nothing  on  bare  faith  —  not  even  the  Holy  Bible.  He 
wants  proof  of  everything  before  he  believes  it,  and  claims  the 
right  to  pursue  his  inquiries  even  into  the  mazes  of  the  question 
as  to  whether  there  is  a  God  or  not,  and  to  require  positive  and 
substantial  proof  that  there  is  before  he  accepts  it  as  a  settled 
fact.  A  Skeptic  may  believe  in  God,  may  believe  in  the  im 
mortality  of  the  soul,  may  even  believe  in  the  divine  origin  of 
the  Bible,  but  it  will  only  be  after  he  has  investigated,  inquired 
and  reasoned  for  himself,  and  has  found  what  in  his  judgment 
is  satisfactory  proof;  otherwise  he  would  not  be  a  Skeptic  at  all. 
A  Free-Thinker  is  about  the  same  as  a  Skeptic.  He  claims 
and  exercises  the  right  to  think  and  investigate  for  himself, 


124  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

and  to  be  exempt  from  dictation  in  the  matter  by  a  clergyman, 
or  any  one  else.  If,  as  the  result  of  his  own  investigations,  he 
arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the  orthodox  faith  is,  after  all, 
correct,  he  is  no  less  a  Free-Thinker;  but  a  majority  of  persons 
so  styled  seem  to  entertain  an  opposite  view  of  the  question. 

I  could  not  cite  a  clearer  example  of  a  Skeptic,  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  term,  than  Thomas,  one  of  Christ's  disciples.  He 
had  seen  his  Master  put  to  death  on  the  cross,  and  his  side 
pierced  with  a  spear,  and  he  refused  to  believe  that  Jesus  had 
risen  from  the  dead  until  he  had  "  thrust  his  hand  in  his  side," 
where  the  wound  was  made,  and  examined  the  laceration  caused 
by  the  nails  in  the  hands  and  feet.  In  fact,  a  writer  of  Scripture 
• —  St.  Paul,  I  think  —  commands  us  all  to  be  Skeptics  when  he 
says,  Prove  all  things. 

There,  too,  is  the  Deist.  He  believes  there  is  a  God  —  some 
supreme  and  intelligent  Power  controlling  the  universe  —  but 
does  not  believe  in  revealed  religion.  He  regards  the  Bible  as 
only  of  human  origin  and  of  only  historical  value.  Such  was 
Thomas  Paine. 

The  Atheist,  as  the  word  implies,  does  not  believe  there  is  a 
God  •  certainly  does  not  believe  the  Bible  to  be  other  than  of 
human  origin ;  and  usually  sees  no  positive  evidence  of  the  ex 
istence  of  an  immortal  soul,  although  he  may  remain  in  doubt 
on  this  point  all  his  life.  Such  was  John  Stuart  Mill.  It  is 
possible,  of  course,  for  a  man  to  ignore  the  existence  of  a  God, 
yet  admit  the  existence  of  a  subtile  principle  of  life  within  us, 
the  Soul,  which  may  outlast  our  decaying  bodies  and  retain  its 
identity  and  individuality.  Many  of  the  strongest  Spiritualists, 
whose  whole  creed  is  of  course  founded  on  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  deny  or  doubt  the  existence  of  a  God. 

"  Infidel"  is  a  general  term,  meaning  "unbeliever,"  as  gener 
ally  used,  but  it  may  be  applied,  in  the  same  sense,  to  almost 


THE   RELIGION  OF  EDITORS.  125 

any  one  who  does  not  believe  in  the  creed  of  another.  The 
Buddhist  might  style  the  Christian  an  "Infidel,"  because  the 
latter  is  an  unbeliever  in  his  faith  ;  and  so,  with  equal  propriety, 
might  a  person  of  one  Christian  sect  term  an  adherent  to  the 
doctrines  of  another  Christian  sect. 

Besides  the  classes  of  "  unbelievers  "  in  the  Christian  religion 
thus  hastily  alluded  to,  there  are,  even  in  this  country,  societies 
of  "unbelievers"  whose  creeds  partake  of  the  form  of  religion, 
but  are  irreconcilable  with  the  views  of  orthodox  Christians. 
Such  are  the  Jews,  the  Mormons,  the  Swedenborgians,  and  a 
number  of  other  non-secular  societies.  In  other  countries 
there  are  many  more,  as,  for  example,  the  followers  of  Moham 
med  and  of  Buddha.  In  England,  persons  not  adhering  to  the 
Established  Church  are  looked  upon  as  little  more  or  less  than 
"  Infidels"  by  many  persons  who  do  adhere  to  that  church. 

Science  has  done  much  of  late  years,  in  what  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  styling  civilized  countries,  to  enhance  Skepticism ;  for 
in  astronomy,  geology,  natural  history,  and  other  studies,  there 
have  been  made  various  developments  of  facts  which  many 
persons  consider  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  theories  which 
have  their  foundation  in  Scripture.  Now,  editors  of  news 
papers  are  thinking  and  reasoning  men,  if  there  is  any  set  of 
men  who  are  such  as  a  class ;  ever  seeking  for  truth  and  facts, 
in  all  phases  of  life,  as  well  as  in  the  remotest  corners  of  inert 
matter ;  and  hence  they  are  Skeptics,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
term,  before  they  know  it.  They  are  reading  men  as  well  as 
writers,  men  whose  business  it  is  to  know  what  is  new,  and  they 
keep  pace  with  the  developments  of  the  sciences.  They  cannot 
all  be  finished  astronomers,  geologists  and  physicists,  but  when 
there  is  anything  new  in  these  departments  of  science,  they 
must  be  the  first  to  know  it.  Such  developments,  indeed,  have 
been  made  in  the  science  of  geology,  that  even  eminent  divines 


126  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

agree  that  new  meanings  must  be  attached  to  the  language  of 
Genesis  relating  to  the  Creation  of  the  World.  So,  when  old 
forms  of  belief  begin  to  crumble,  it  is  not  easy  to  set  up  new  theo 
ries  immediately  that  will  be  readily  acquiesced  in  by  everybody. 

There,  too,  is  the  startling  theory  of  Professor  Darwin,  that 
all  animals,  including  man,  have  a  common  origin,  —  that  man 
has  reached  his  present  comparatively  high  estate  through  many 
successive  stages  of  development,  —  that  his  ancestors  of  merely 
a  few  million  years  ago  were  very  much  inferior,  even  in  the 
matter  of  form,  to  the  present  races  of  men.  This  is  another 
theory  irreconcilable  with  a  literal  construction  of  the  account 
of  the  Creation  given  in  Genesis.  But  that  a  simple  belief  in 
the  Darwinian  Theory  does  not  make  an  editor  a  very  irreverent 
man,  may  be  conceded  when  I  state  that  I  once  heard  a  well- 
known  lecturer  on  geology  say  on  the  rostrum  that  an  "emi 
nent  divine  "-  —  whom  it  would  now  be  just  as  well  not  to  men 
tion — confessed  to  him  that  he  himself  (the  divine)  believed  in 
the  Darwinian  Theory,  that  he  considered  it  the  only  plausible 
theory  of  the  origin  of  man,  and  that  he  believed  the  language 
of  Genesis  should  be  accepted  as  having  only  a  figurative 
meaning.  The  "eminent  divine"  still  believed  in  the  Bible, 
of  course,  as  God's  revealed  will  and  work,  and  also  believed 
that  "God  works  by  means,"  and  that  he  had  made  the  laws 
by  which  the  great  work  of  Development  has  been  so  far  car 
ried  out  —  that  is,  the  development  of  man  from  lower  animals. 

From  the  nature  of  their  occupation,  journalists  are  of  course 
the  first  numerous  class  of  persons  to  become  acquainted  with 
new  doctrines,  new  theories ;  the  first  to  give  them  thoughtful 
consideration,  and  the  aptest  to  regard  them  with  calm  and 
impartial  judgment.  I  think  the  latter  assertion  is  entirely 
reasonable,  because  editors  are  so  used  to  dealing  daily  with 
startling  things  that  in  their  eyes  new  and  eccentric  theories  are 


THE   RELIGION  OF  EDITORS,  I2/ 

speedily  shorn  of  their  novelty,  and  ready  to  be  considered  in 
a  spirit  of  coolness  and  fairness. 

In  the  course  of  their  daily  duties,  too,  journalists  see  so  much 
that  is  calculated  to  disgust  them  —  not  with  religion  itself,  but 
with  many  of  its  prominent  votaries.  Defalcations,  embezzle 
ments,  "immoralities,"  and  other  villanies  perpetrated  by  men 
"hitherto  regarded  as  Christian  gentlemen,"  etc.;  church- 
quarrels  and  church-ruptures  ;  church-scandals,  in  the  course  of 
which  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  are  often  found  to  be  incredibly 
carnal-minded ;  all  these  subjects  are  daily  handled  by  the 
reporter  and  editor,  daily  given  account  of,  and  daily  com 
mented  on  by  the  journalists;  and  so  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  their  alarming  frequency  tends  to  lessen,  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  are  nearest  to  them  as  spectators  —  the  news 
paper  men  —  respect  for  societies  whose  leading  upholders 
are  so  often  found  wanting  in  honesty  and  purity.  The  fact 
cannot  be  ignored  that  a  certain  amount  of  obloquy  is  brought 
upon  any  institution  which  is  found  to  be  upheld  by  a  consid 
erable  number  of  persons  who  prove  to  be  possessed  of  immoral 
characters  —  one  of  the  worst  traits  of  which  is  hypocrisy. 

Among  other  things  at  which  I  have  frequently  heard 
skeptical  journalists  express  disgust,  and  which,  while  it  is  no 
logical  argument  against  the  correctness  of  religious  theories, 
may  have  strengthened  their  doubts,  is  the  whining  piety  of 
murderers  who  so  often  swing  from  the  scaffold  with  the  avowed 
conviction  that  they  have  "made  their  peace  with  God,"  and 
that  they  are  going  straight  to  heaven,  to  "  dwell  with  him  and 
his  angels,"  and  to  be  "blessed  for  ever;  "  while  the  victim, 
probably  not  a  bad  sort  of  person,  is  — 

Cut  off  even  in  the  blossom  of  (his)  sin, 

Unhousel'd,  disappointed,  unanel'd; 

No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  (his)  account 

With  all  (his)  imperfections  on  (his)  head ! 


128  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Before  me  lies  a  newspaper,  in  which  the  following  paragraph, 
by  mere  chance,  thus  opportunely  catches  my  eye : 

UDDERZOOK'S  EXECUTION.  —  Udclerzook  is  to  be  hung  at  West  Chester 
on  Thursday.  During  the  past  few  days  he  has  undergone  a  marked  change. 
He  looks  now  as  though  hope  was  fast  fading  from  his  bosom,  and  his 
expression  denotes  his  having  awakened  to  the  consciousness  of  his  awful 
situation.  He  expresses  a  hope  to  share  in  the  all-forgiving  power  of  God. 

This  is  an  example  of  a  class  of  cases  to  which  journalists 
often  allude  in  severe  terms,  not  only  in  private  conversation, 
but  also,  as  is  well  known,  in  their  editorial  writings. 

The  Boston  daily  Herald,  a  paper  of  large  circulation  and  of 
liberal  and  independent  views,  gives  a  certain  amount  of  space 
in  its  columns  to  all,  without  discrimination,  who  wish  to  express 
their  sentiments  or  opinions  on  questions  of  general  interest, 
only  making  it  a  condition  that  the  communications  be  cour 
teous  in  tone  and  of  no  unreasonable  length.  A  few  years  ago, 
when  the  proposition  of  adding  a  religious  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  of  so  taking  the  first 
step  toward  destroying  religious  liberty  —  a  very  corner 
stone  in  the  foundation  of  our  nationality — was  agitated, 
some  one  wrote  to  the  Boston  Herald to  advocate  the  measure, 
arguing  that  a  constitutional  recognition  of  Christianity  would 
increase  its  strength  and  influence,  and  that  with  the  enhance 
ment  of  religion,  crime  would  naturally  abate.  A  day  or  two 
afterward  some  one  else  wrote  to  the  Herald,  in  reply,  as 
follows : 

Editor  of  the  Herald :  In  writing  to  you  on  a  question  of  religion,  a 
correspondent  has  recently  maintained  that  a  belief  in  Christianity  is  neces 
sary  as  a  check  upon  such  as  are  disposed  to  commit  crime.  I  claim  that  this 
is  no  argument  as  to  the  correctness  of  Christian  theories ;  and  I  also  claim 
that  religion  does  not  restrain  men  from  committing  crime.  Nor  do  I  wish 
to  beg  the  question.  In  support  of  my  assertion  I  cite  the  fact  that  there 


THE  RELIGION  OF  EDITORS.         I2g 

never  was  a  murderer  hanged  in  this  country  who  did  not  go  to  the  gallows 
a  believer  in  religion ;  and  all,  with  but  one  or  two  exceptions,  have  died 
with  prayers  on  their  lips  and  in  the  full  hope  of  everlasting  happiness. 
I  believe  I  am  safe  in  asserting  that  not  one  of  the  class  styled  "  Infidels  " 
has  ever  been  hanged,  or  even  convicted  of  a  heinous  crime  in  this  coun 
try.  Let  me  mention  a  significant  fact,  supported  by  statistics :  the  Auburn 
Penitentiary  contains  about  fifteen  hundred  convicts  —  all  believers  in  Chris 
tianity  ;  and  what  is  still  more  striking  is,  that  among  the  inmates  of  this 
prison  the  ministry  is  more  largely  represented  than  any  other  profession 
or  trade  —  the  number  of  clergymen  being  twenty-five !  I  ask  if  those 
facts  support  the  theory  that  a  belief  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  prevents 
men  from  committing  crime? 

Thus  journalists  are  continually  handling  this  subject  of  re 
ligion,  either  for  themselves  or  others,  and  thus  are  they  con 
stantly  brought  face  to  face  with  statistics,  for  and  against ;  and 
whether  those  who  have  become  skeptics  are  on  the  right  road 
or  not,  I  believe  it  would  be  only  reasonable  to  concede  that, 
together  with  their  orthodox  brothers,  they  have  aimed  at  im 
partiality  in  their  researches  and  reasonings. 

I  have  noticed  a  great  similarity  in  the  experience  of  dissent 
ing  journalists  with  whom  I  have  conversed  on  the  subject  of 
religious  skepticism.  Nearly  all  —  I  do  not  remember  any  ex 
ception —  were  born  of  Christian  parents,  and  brought  up  "  in 
the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord ;  "  they  began  to  think 
and  reason  independently  at  about  the  age  of  manhood ;  began - 
to  lose  confidence  in  the  reliability  of  the  Scriptures  ;  to  doubt 
the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ;  the  existence  of  a  devil  and  hell ; 
of  the  New  Jerusalem,  with  golden  streets  and  walls  of  precious 
stones ;  finally,  (many  of  them,)  of  a  Supreme  Being.  Some 
never  got  so  far  as  this ;  some  halted  at  Unitarianism,  Univer- 
salism,  Deism,  etc.,  as  before  intimated.  In  all  cases,  however, 
about  the  first  article  of  the  orthodox  faith  to  be  abandoned 
was  the  burning  hell.  It  would  therefore  seem  that  a  fitting 

I 


I3O  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

injunction  to  those  who  wish  to  remain  believers  in  the  Chris 
tian  religion  would  be:  "Don't  take  the  first  step;  don't  give 
up  eternal  punishment." 

I  do  not  wish  to  obtrude  my  own  views  on  religion,  but  I 
think  I  should  fail  to  be  entirely  ingenuous,  if  I  did  not,  while 
on  this  subject,  state  that,  like  many  other  journalists,  I  have 
long  entertained  religious  views  of  the  widest  liberality.  Nor 
have  my  conclusions  been  hasty.  They  have  only  been  reached 
through  many  gradations  of  deliberate  thought.  I  have  never 
given  up  an  old  theory  before  its  untenability  was  presented  to 
my  mind  as  entirely  unequivocal. 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  a  person's  opinions  on  this  or  any 
other  subject  will  ever  involve  his  moral  character.  The  most 
honorable  of  men  may  be  found  among  Skeptics,  just  as  some 
very  dishonorable  persons  are  to  be  found  among  those  profess 
ing  religion.  A  rascal  will  be.  a  rascal,  even  though  he  be 
arrayed  in  a  bishop's  robes ;  an  honest  man  will  be  an  honest 
man,  even  though  he  be  branded  as  an  "  Infidel !  " 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  this 
work  complete,  to  make  it  what  its  title  purports,  without  allud 
ing  briefly  to  this  subject  —  "The  Religion  of  Editors;" 
and  having  taken  it  up,  I  could  entertain  no  thought  of  dealing 
with  it  in  any  other  way  than  frankly  and  truthfully.  And  I 
believe  it  is  due  to  the  large  number  of  skeptical  journalists, 
whose  power  for  good  or  evil  is  ever  great,  to  say  that  in  aban 
doning  the  forms  of  religion  they  have  not  abandoned  truth 
and  integrity.  If  they  have  let  go  the  shadow,  they  have  clung 
still  closer  to  the  substance.  If  I  have  observed  with  reason 
able  penetration  and  judgment,  I  believe  they  have  a  code  of 
ethics  —  no  written  code  —  that  is  noble,  and  good,  and  worthy 
of  any  being,  mortal  or  immortal,  a  code  that  says :  "Be  just, 
for  the  sake  of  justice ;  be  truthful,  for  the  sake  of  truth ;  be 


THE   PAY   OF  NEWSPAPER   MEN.  13! 

honorable,  for  the  sake  of  honor ;  be  nothing  and  do  nothing 
either  from  fear  of  punishment  or  hope  of  reward ;  do  right 
always,  and  only  because  it  is  right." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE  PA  Y  OF  NE  WSPAPER  MEN. 

ON  the  subject  of  the  remuneration  of  employed  newspaper 
men,  I  find  an  article  in  Harper1  s  Monthly,  from  which, 
as  the  views  of  the  writer  are  entirely  correct,  I  make  the  fol 
lowing  extract : 

The  suppression  of  half  our  daily  papers  would  greatly  advance  the  art 
of  journalism  in  the  United  States.  Five,  six,  seven  daily  papers  in  a  city 
of  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants !  Some  of  these  have  a  corps 
consisting  of  one  individual;  and  where  there  are  three'persons  employed, 
the  paper  feels  itself  entitled  to  some  rank  in  the  world  of  journalism.  One 
consequence  is  that  two-thirds  of  all  the  working  journalists  in  the  country 
receive  less  than  the  wages  of  good  mechanics;  and  another  consequence 
is  that  the  daily  press,  published  in  the  midst  of  an  intelligent  people,  is 
sometimes  a  daily  miracle  of  calumnious  inanity.  Falsehood  and  folly  in 
daily  papers  are  not  so  much  an  evidence  of  depravity  as  of  poverty.  In 
telligence  and  character  are  costly ;  frivolity  and  recklessness  are  cheap. 
The  incessant  abuse  of  individuals  is  one  of  the  few  resources  of  an  empty 
mind.  It  cannot  discuss  principles;  it  cannot  communicate  knowledge j 
it  cannot  enliven  by  wit  and  good  humor;  nothing  remains  to  it  but  to 
assail  character.  And  even  where  the  decorums  of  the  press  are  strictly 
observed,  we  find  in  the  columns  of  newspapers  which  are  struggling  for 
life  amazing  exhibitions  of  helpless  ignorance.  The  nauseating  trail  of 
fifteen  dollars  a  week  is  seen  all  over  them,  a  sign  of  that  agonizing  contest 
for  existence  which  goes  wherever  ten  are  trying  to  subsist  upon  means  in 
sufficient  for  five. 


132  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Many  persons  somehow  or  other  drift  into  journalism  who 
were  never  fitted,  either  by  habit  or  education,  for  that  calling. 
The  result  is,  they  never  rise  above  positions  of  mere  "drudg 
ery,''  but  remain  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water"  in 
the  Sanctum  all  their  lives.  Never  attaining  advanced  posi 
tions,  they  seldom  receive  salaries  much  above  fifteen  dollars  a 
week,  and  so  they  go  through  a  life  with  the  idea  that  they  are 
journalists,  when  the  truth  is  that  they  are  less  than  good 
entry-clerks,  and  the  fruits  of  their  great  minds'  labors  are 
incomparably  smaller  than  those  of  the  hands  of  a  skillful 
mechanic.  If  I  had  to  decide  whether  to  be  a  good  mechanic 
or  a  poor  journalist,  I  would  not  be  a  second  in  deciding  to  be 
the  former. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  brightest  journalists  in  the 
United  States  have  passed  through  those  gloomy  stages  of 
"moderate  pay,"  and  risen  to  positions  the  salaries  of  which 
place  them  far  above  petty  financial  troubles.  Some  of  the 
most  brilliant  men  in  newspaper  history  have  worked  for  from 
five  to  ten  dollars  a  week ;  and  —  must  I  tell  this  "secret," 
too?  —  have  more  than  once  suffered  from  an  insufficiency  of 
food,  more  than  once  "gone  hungry."  But  such  men,  in 
whom  there  was  something  of  depth,  and  greatness,  and  firm 
ness  of  purpose,  did  not  remain  long  in  the  realms  of  "  Bohe- 
mianism;  "  and  many  who  once  found  themselves  obliged  to 
live,  somehow,  on  five  dollars  a  week,  now  feel  that  they  are  too 
poorly  paid  at  five  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

One  of  the  few  comparatively  wealthy  editors  I  happen  to 
know  once  told  me  that  when  he  first  settled  in  a  certain  large 
Western  city  he  "  made  himself  generally  useful  "  in  the  edito 
rial  department  of  a  daily,  a  whole  summer,  for  five,  and,  later, 
six  dollars  a  week.  In  the  autumn  another  paper  engaged  him 
at  twenty,  which  was  soon  advanced  to  thirty  dollars  a  week. 


THE   PAY  OF  NEWSPAPER   MEN.  133 

He  "stuck  to  it,"  became  one  of  the  proprietors,  finally  the 
senior  proprietor ;  the  paper  prospered,  owing  to  his  judicious 
management ;  and,  although  he  has  ever  been  'prodigal  in  his 
expenditures,  he  is  worth  half  a  million  dollars.  "  Good  luck  " 
aided  him  in  a  considerable  degree,  but  his  success  was  largely 
due  to  natural  genius,  industry  and  perseverance. 

I  believe  the  majority  of  us  have  passed  through  the  "hard- 
up  "  days,  the  days  of  "  dead-brokenness. "  What  is  the  use  of 
denying  it  ?  I  have  worked  for  five  dollars  a  week,  and  slept 
on  a  pile  of  exchanges.  I  have  seen  the  time  that  "circum 
stances  over  which  I  had  no  control"  dictated  to  me  the 
necessity  —  not  merely  the  propriety  —  of  eating  plainer  food 
than  I  would  have  liked  —  plainer  food  than  the  kind  I  needed 

—  and  of  not  even  wasting  any  of  that.     I  have  seen  the  time 

—  why  should  I  conceal  the  truth  ?  —  when  a  person  I  know 
very  intimately  has  gone  without  food  for  days  at  a  time,  and 
that  when  in  excellent  bodily  health  and  blessed  (?)  with  an 
unusual  appetite.     I  have  seen  the  days  of  threadbare  clothes, 
of  dilapidated  shoes,  and  a  "shocking  bad  hat,"  and  I  remem 
ber  that  I  have  blushed  at  the  thought  of  belonging  to  the 
"  Shabby  Genteel,"  and  when  it  brought  the  hot  blood  to  my 
face  to  hear  careless,  and  happy,  and  well-fed,  and  well-clothed 
people  merrily  singing  this  chorus  of  a  well-known  song : 

"  Too  proud  to  beg,  too  honest  to  steal, 

We  know  what  it  is  to  be  wanting  a  meal ; 
^  Our  tatters  and  rags  we  try  to  conceal ; 

We  belong  to  the  «  Shabby  Genteel ! '  " 

Gases  of  actual  destitution,  however,  are  by  no  means  frequent 
in  journalistic  life.  They  are  episodes,  usually  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  editor's  professional  career.  I  never  saw  one  who 
had  the  foolish  pride,  among  his  brother  journalists,  not  to 


134  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

acknowledge  such  little  former  embarrassments  and  laugh  at 
them,  years  afterward  ;  yet  all  had  such  an  amount  of  pride  at 
the  time  that  they  would  have  starved  and  died  rather  than 
acknowledge  that  they  were  hungry.  It  is  a  strange  pride,  hut 
its  existence  is  quite  common.  I  know  of  nothing  that  it 
would  be  harder  for  a  truly  proud-spirited  man  to  do  than  to 
go  to  any  one  and  say,  "I'm  hungry,"  when  he  is  really  suffer 
ing  from  a  want  of  food. 

I  know  a  certain  newspaper  man  who  told  me  a  rather 
amusing  story  of  going  without  victuals  awhile  in  St.  Louis, 
and  I  made  the  following  sketch  of  it  for  Saturday  Night,  the 
publishers  of  which  paper  have  given  me  their  cordial  per 
mission  to  reproduce  it  here  : 

HUNGRY. 

"  Hungry?"  said  Mose.  "  I  should  say  I  was  once;  and  —  Lord,  pity 
the  poor !  —  I  had  never  thought  it  was  so  hard  before.  I  never  told  you 
about  it  ?  No  ?  Well,  I  thought  I  had.  To  tell  the  truth  about  it,  though, 
I  was  a  little  sore  on  the  subject  for  a  year." 

"  How  was  it,  Mose  ?" 

"  I'll  tell  you,  for  I  can  laugh  at  it  now.  In  the  summer  of  'sixty-six  I 
was  on  a  tour  through  the  Mississippi  Valley,  as  correspondent  for  a  well- 
known  paper.  I  reached  St.  Louis  one  Friday  evening,  expecting  to  find 
a  remittance  awaiting  me  at  the  post-office.  It  had  not  arrived  yet,  but  I 
Would  have  taken  my  oath,  before  a  notary  public,  that  it  would  come  on 
Saturday.  The  truth  is,  I  had  met  with  such  genial  company  on  the 
steamer  from  Memphis  up  that  I  had  not  kept  back  any  fair  reserve  fund;  so 
I  looked  upon  that  expected  remittance  with  a  good  deal  of  veneration. 

"  Intending  to  stay  in  St.  Louis  two  or  three  weeks,  I  took  a  furnished 
room  not  far  from  the  Planters'  Hotel,  paying  one  week's  rent  in  advance. 
Next  thing  to  be  looked  after  was  meals.  I  took  supper  at  a  restaurant,  and 
had  a  dollar  left.  On  Saturday  morning  I  took  breakfast,  and  then  went  to 
the  post-office  to  get  my  letter;  but  —  confound  it  —  there  was  none  for  me. 
I  could  have  murdered  that  clerk  when  he  drawled  out, «  N-n-o! '  in  answer 
to  my  inquiry.  Well,  I  went  to  the  post-office  twice  more  that  day.  I  saw 


THE   PAY  OF  NEWSPAPER  MEN.  135 

a  different  clerk  the  last  time  —  a  more  generous-looking  one  —  and  my 
heart  beat  with  hope ;  but  he  could  n't  lie  —  there  was  no  letter  for  me,  and 
much  as  he  may  have  felt  pained  about  it,  he  had  to  tell  me  so. 

"Evening  finally  overtook  me  with  five  cents  in  my  pocket  —  and  no 
letter.     In  despair  I  purchased  a  glass  of  beer  —  for  it  was  warm  weather 
—  and  prepared  to  stare  a  very  quiet  Sunday  in  the  face.     I — but  wait  a 
minute,  and  I'll  get  you  my  diary;  then  you  can  read  for  yourself." 
Mose  went  up-stairs,  and  soon  returned  with  a  well-worn  diary. 
"There,"  said  he,  opening  to  the  place.     "Begin  there." 
He  lighted  a  cigar,  and  sat  with  his  feet  on  the  mantel,  while  I  read  his 
almost  illegible  pencil-tracks. 

Saturday  Night,  bedtime. — No  remittance  to-day.  Last  cent  gone.  To 
morrow  is  Sunday,  and  Heaven  knows  how  I  am  to  live  through  it.  No 
meals  provided  for,  and  I  don't  know  a  soul  in  St.  Louis.  Must  I  go  till 
Monday  morning  without  —  eating  ?  It  cannot  be !  Some  unexpected 
accident  will  throw  a  meal  in  my  way — I  feel  it. 

Sunday  Morning. — I  have  slept  late  this  morning.  I  seldom  have  any 
appetite  to  speak  of  in  the  morning;  but  it  just  happens  this  time,  with  no 
prospect  of  nourishment,  that  my  stomach  is  howling.  What  am  I  to  do  ? 
Well,  I  must  walk  out.  Perhaps  a  little  exercise  will  do  instead  of  break 
fast —  though  exercise,  simply  as  an  article  of  diet,  is  not  recommended  by 
physicians. 

Sunday  Noon. — I  feel  actually  hungry.  Drank  a  great  deal  of  water, 
this  forenoon,  to  sort  o'  fill  up.  Tried  to  read.  Walked  out  twice,  but  only 
returned  each  time  feeling  more  and  more  —  hungry. 

Sunday  Evening. — Twenty-four  hours  since  food  has  entered  my  stomach. 
Experience  a  sense  of  faintness  and  prostration  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
breast-bone.  Knees  weak.  Feel  no  tendency  to  vigorous  physical  exer 
tion.  I  am  hungry  —  very  hungry.  Could  eat  nails. 

Sunday  Evening,  nine  o'clock. — Rather  early,  but  I  shall  retire.  Will 
try  slumber  as  a  substitute  for  food.  Providence  has  thrown  nothing  in  my 
way.  I  did  walk  a  couple  of  miles,  thinking  I  might  find  some  money,  but 
in  vain.  Have  drunk  water  ravenously  all  the  evening.  What  if  no  remit 
tance  comes  to-morrow  ?  I  must  not  think  of  it,  or  I  shall  go  mad  ! 

Monday  Morning. — Passed  a  rather  restless  night.  Got  up  eight  or  nine 
times,  and  drank  water  with  a  freedom  new  to  me.  Think  I  must  have 
been  slightly  delirious.  Dreamed  repeatedly  of  meals.  Dreamed  once  of 


136  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

a  whole  roast  ox.  Awoke.  Smell  of  beefsteak  coming  fiendishly  up  from 
below,  where  landlady  is  preparing  breakfast  —  peaceful,  happy  breakfast  — 
for  family;  but  not  for  Mose!  Bewildered  with  appetite.  Glance  at 
uppers  of  my  boots.  They  look  good.  Think  of  starving  sailors. 

Monday,  eleven  A.  M. — Joy!  Remittance  arrived.  Ordered  beef 
steak  and  mutton-chops  both  at  restaurant.  Felt  as  though  I  could  eat  all 
on  the  table,  including  napkins,  and  a  leg  or  two  of  the  table  itself.  Hun 
gry?  Whew  !  Singular,  though,  could  n't  eat  much,  after  all.  Very  little 
satisfied  me  for  the  time.  Could  n't  eat  half  a  meal.  Wondered  how  it 
was.  Concluded  that  stomach  got  out  of  practice.  But  I  feel  very  happy, 
as  I  clutch  a  little  handful  of  greenbacks.  Think  now  that  I  was  a  fool  to 
go  hungry  all  day  yesterday.  Should  have  explained  matters  to  the 
benevolent-looking  landlady,  and  got  something  to  eat.  Would  n't  pass 
another  such  day.  Would  beg  first.  I  wonder  how  it  feels  to  starve? 
Must  now  write  a  letter  to  the Journal,  on  the  manufacturing  inter 
ests  of  St.  Louis.  How  I  do  pity  the  poor ! 

Not  every  newspaper  man  has  been  in  actual  want,  but  there 
are  times  when,  through  various  adverse  circumstances,  the  best 
of  journalists  may  be  thrown  "out  of  a  job"  for  awhile,  and 
being  improvident  to  the  extent  of  having  "nothing  ahead," 
their  minds  being  generally  occupied  by  nobler  thoughts  than 
those  relating  to  the  accumulation  of  money,  they  find  these 
exigencies  very  awkward,  to  say  the  least.  On  one  occasion, 
while  connected  with  the  press  in  a  large  city  of  the  Atlantic 
Coast,  I  met  an  old  friend  who  had  for  some  time  been  manag 
ing  the  editorial  department  of  a  well-known  Western  daily 
paper,  but  had  been  obliged  to  give  it  up  and  leave  the  locality 
on  account  of  becoming  a  victim  of  the  ague.  He  had  a 
family  and  but  little  means,  and  I  told  him  I  would  look  around 
and  try  to  find  an  opening  for  him.  I  soon  learned  that  an 
assistant  was  wanted  on  a  paper  which  I  knew  very  little  about, 
and  which,  as  I  afterward  learned,  was  struggling  for  existence. 
Having  met  one  of  the  proprietors,  I  called  on  him  and  men 
tioned  my  friend,  whose  abilities  I  knew  to  be  such  that  he 


THE   PAY  OF  NEWSPAPER   MEN. 

could  have  creditably  occupied  the  position  of  Managing 
Editor  of  the  biggest  paper  in  the  country.  On  the  strength 
of  my  recommendation,  the  proprietors  at  once  consented  to 
engage  him,  and  requested  me  to  "bring  him  round."  I  did 
so ;  introduced  him  and  left  him  to  make  an  agreement  with 
them.  I  met  him  in  the  street  a  few  days  afterward,  and 
aske*d : 

"  Well,  did  you  arrive  at  an  understanding?  " 

"Yes,"  he  replied;  "but  I  have  to  start  in  on  a  very  small 
salary.  How  much  do  you  suppose  ?  ' ' 

"  Eighteen  dollars?  "  I  guessed. 

"Only  thirteen,"  said  he. 

"  Rather  small,  foryvu,"  I  said. 

"  Yes ;  but  they  tell  me  they  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  they  are  going  to  make  a  great  success  of  the  paper ;  that 
the  position  of  Managing  Editor  will  be  vacant  within  a  year, 
and  that  I  can  thus  work  myself  into  a  fine  position,  with  a 
handsome  salary.  I  '11,  of  course,  do  all  I  can  to  build  it  up." 

"Ah?  That  sounds  better.  Then  you'll  try  it  for  the 
present?" 

"  Yes ;  I  'm  at  work  already." 

We  parted,  neither  having  two  minutes  to  spare. 

A  week  later  I  saw  him  in  the  street,  leaning  against  a 
druggist's  sign,  with  his  hands  in  his  overcoat  pockets,  and 
gazing  thoughtfully  at  passing  vehicles.  There  was  an  unmis 
takable  air  of  leisure  about  him,  and  I  said  : 

"Ah!  how's  this?" 

"I've  left,"  he  replied. 

"What's  the  matter?" 

"  Well,  Saturday  afternoon  came  round  and  they  began  to 
pay  off.  They  said  they  were  a  little  short  —  hadn't  got 
fairly  under  way  yet  —  couldn't  well  pay  me  quite  all  my 

12* 


138  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

week's  salary  just  then,  and  offered  me  three  dollars  on  ac 
count." 

"Then  you  left?" 

"  Just  as  soon  as  I  could  get  my  hat  on." 

"I  should  have  done  so,  too,"  I  said.  "I'm  sorry  I 
did  n't  know  they  were  in  such  a  fix  as  that,  or  I  should  not 
have  advised  you  to  go  there." 

He  soon  after  took  a  position  on  a  more  substantial  paper, 
with  which  I  believe  he  is  still  connected,  and  on  which  he 
made  himself  so  useful  that  his  services  were  considered  worth 
twenty-eight  hundred  dollars  a  year,  which  is  certainly  a  trifle 
better  than  thirteen  dollars  a  week,  and  only  three  dollars  of 
that  amount  "down." 

In  another  city  I  once  had  a  bit  of  similar  experience,  and 
more  of  it,  as  I  worked  three  weeks  on  a  newly-established  daily 
and  never  got  a  cent  of  my  salary,  which  had  been  fixed  at 
twenty  dollars  a  week,  to  be  speedily  advanced  to  twenty-five, 
with  a  still  further  increase  in  the  perspective.  The  paper  went 
up,  and  the  proprietor  is  dead,  and  —  good-by  !  He  might  as 
well  have  honored  me  by  promising  me  five  hundred  dollars  a 
week,  as  he  could  have  paid  that  amount  just  as  easily  as  the 
stipulated  twenty. 

Some  persons  have  big  ideas  of  the  prices  paid  for  manuscripts 
by  publishers  of  weekly  story  papers.  The  regular  writers  for 
such  papers  are  paid  an  amount,  sometimes  by  the  column,  that 
prevents  their  coming  to  want,  but  seldom  such  an  amount  as  to 
give  promise  of  the  accumulation  of  riches.  I  think  it  would 
be  well  enough  for  a  person  who  contemplates  writing  for  a 
weekly  paper  not  to  count  on  getting  over  ten  or  fifteen  dollars 
per  column  for  his  manuscripts  —  if  they  are  accepted  at  all ; 
and  if  he  should  get  more  than  that,  the  surprise  will  be  on  the 
sunny  side.  "  Blessed  are  they  that  expect  little  "  — for  obvious 
reasons. 


THE   PAY  OF  NEWSPAPER   MEN.  139 

I  once  had  a  position  on  a  literary  weekly  in  which  it  was  a 
part  of  my  duty  to  examine  manuscripts  offered  for  publication 
and  decide  whether  they  were  worthy  of  acceptation,  or  entitled 
to  be  "respectfully  declined."  During  this  period  of  my  life, 
I  was  one  evening  thrown  in  the  company  of  a  gentleman  who 
was  introduced  to  me  as  Col.  Minks. 

"The  colonel,"  said  the  person  who  introduced  us,  "  is  a 
literary  man,  like  yourself." 

This  was  highly  gratifying,  to  be  sure,  and  I  deemed  myself 
in  the  presence  of  some  eminent  historian.  In  the  course  of 
our  conversation  the  colonel  informed  me  that  he  was  "writing 
a  novel,"  of  which  he  told  me  the  projected  title,  and  for 
which  he  said  he  expected  to  receive  the  sum  of  ten  thousand 
dollars. 

I  thought  this  a  trifle  above  the  average  price  paid  for  novels 
in  this  country,  and  ventured  to  suggest  that  he  would  be  very 
fortunate  should  he  succeed  in  getting  his  price,  stating  that  a 
New  York  publishing-house  had  recently  offered  Dickens  him 
self  but  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  for  his  next  story. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  certain  of  getting  my  price,"  he  said,  confidently; 
"  and  I  know  I  '11  take  no  less." 

I  was,  of  course,  glad  to  hear  it ;  and  no  more  was  said  on 
the  subject — I  not  happening  to  mention  that  I  was  connected 
with  the  literary  paper  alluded  to  above. 

A  few  weeks  later  the  proprietor  of  that  paper  handed  me  a 
large  mass  of  manuscript,  saying : 

"  Here  is  a  serial  offered  by  a  new  contributor.  If  you  have 
time  this  week,  please  let  me  know  what  you  think  of  it. ' ' 

"  What  does  he  ask  for  it?  "  I  inquired,  taking  up  the  first 
sheet  or  two. 

"Five  hundred  dollars." 

Glancing  at  the  title,  I  was  a  trifle  surprised  to  discover  that 


140  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

it  was  the  production  of  no  less  a  person  than  Col.  Minks,  the 
ten-thousand-dollar  man  !  Well,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "  blow 
ing,"  you  know. 

I  read  the  story  with  the  same  care  and  impartiality  I  should 
have  exercised  if  I  had  never  met  its  sagacious  author ;  then  did 
what  my  duty  to  the  publisher  and  a  conscientious  regard  for 
truth  compelled  me  to  do  —  rejected  it. 

The  stories  of  fabulous  sums  paid  by  the  publishers  of  weekly 
papers  to  ordinary  story-writers  ought  to  be  compiled  in  a  con 
venient  form  and  made  an  appendix  to  that  piece  of  history 
relative  to  "Aladdin  and  his  Wonderful  Lamp." 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

/ 

DEAD-HEADING. 

IT  need  scarcely  be  explained  that  a  "  Dead-Head  "  is  one 
who,  for  some  reason  or  other,  usually  on. account  of  his 
influential  position,  is  privileged  to  attend  theaters  and  other 
places  of  amusement,  or  to  ride  in  public  conveyances,  free  of 
charge  ;  or  one  who  may  receive  free  copies  of  a  newspaper,  or 
other  publication,  or,  in  fact,  any  other  article  of  a  commercial 
value,  returning  no  equivalent  therefor.  The  term  is  indig 
enous  to  the  United  States,  where  I  think  the  practice  of  "Dead- 
Heading  ' '  prevails  to  an  extent  not  yet  reached  in  any  other 
country.  I  do  not  know  the  exact  origin  of  the  term  "  Dead- 
Head,"  or  how  it  first  came  to  be  applied  to  a  person  who 
receives  favors  for  which  others  have  to  pay,  for  generally  the 
"  head  "  of  such  a  person  is,  in  common  with  his  whole  body, 
in  a  living  condition.  Probably  a  Dead-Head  is  so  styled  for 


DEAD-HEADING.  14! 

about  the  same  reason  that  one  whose  business  it  is  to  bury  the 
dead  is  called  an  undertaker  —  because  he  is. 

Editors  constitute  a  large  class  of  the  Dead-Heads  of  this 
country,  although  in  the  matter  of  public  conveyances  they  have 
a  host  of  companions  in  the  shape  of  Governors,  Congressmen, 
Mayors  of  cities,  members  of  Legislatures,  City  Councilmen, 
and  officers  and  directors  of  railroads.  While  I  have  to  depre 
cate  the  practice  of  Dead-Heading,  I  am  obliged  to  confess  that 
I  myself  have  never  yet  felt  so  high-minded  as  to  decline  a  pass 
on  a  railroad  and  pay  my  fare  as  a  matter  of  preference.  It  is 
"the  custom  of  the  country,"  and  while  it  is  so  I  have  a  deli 
cacy  about  setting  myself  up  as  an  example  of  an  unusual  degree 
of  conscience  —  particularly  where  such  a  course  would  be  found 
expensive.  Still,  I  would  like  to  see  Dead-Heading,  as  an 
"institution,"  abolished.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  must  be 
something  that  lacks  a  mere  trifle  of  being  precisely  right  in  a 
system  that  gives  something  to  certain  privileged  classes  without 
an  equivalent  return ;  and  I  think  the  dignity  of  journalism  will 
be  largely  enhanced  when  the  practice  of  Dead-Heading  be 
comes  obsolete,  so  far,  at  least,  as  newspaper  men  are  concerned. 
To  that  end,  I  am  willing,  for  one,  to  do  my  share  and  to  pay 
like  other  people  for  my  enjoyment  at  places  of  amusement  and 
for  the  conveniences  of  public  conveyances,  and  on  the  other 
hand  to  be  paid  like  other  people  for  my  work,  so  that  the 
incubus  of  "free-puffing"  may  also  be  numbered  with  the 
things  of  the  past. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  case  of  theaters  there  is  a  tacit  under 
standing  that  the  critic  receives  his  free  passes  in  return  for  the 
criticisms  he  writes ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  even  in  this  case 
the  journalist  had  better  pay  the  usual  price  of  admission,  in 
order  that  his  mind  will  be  left  the  more  free  to  criticise  the 
play  with  exclusive  "reference  to  its  deserts.  Besides,  it  is  not 


142  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

only  the  critic  himself  that  goes  to  see  the  play  without  paying. 
Free  tickets  or  passes  by  the  dozen  are  furnished  to  a  newspaper 
establishment  for  the  mere  asking  —  often  without  even  the 
asking;  and  the  book-reviewer,  the  editorial-writer,  the  tele 
graph-editor,  the  general  news-editor  and  the  city-editor  all  go 
and  take  their  wives,  and  a  friend  or  two  each,  without  writing 
a  line.  It  looks  almost  as  if  the  manager  of  the  theater  were 
saying  to  the  editors :  "  Come  to  my  theater,  and  view  my  ex 
pensive  scenery  and  the  acting  of  my  well-paid  performers, 
without  money  and  without  price ;  but  in  return,  be  kind 
enough  to  lie  a  little  for  me,  occasionally,  and  tell  the  public 
that  the  entertainment  is  admirable  when  you  know  it  is  execra 
ble.  ' '  I  say  it  has  this  look,  although  any  editor  would  repel 
with  indignation  and  scorn  any  such  direct  proposition. 

In  the  matter  of  public  conveyances,  I  think  there  is  still  less 
excuse  for  Dead-Heading,  and  the  practice  has  a  still  worse 
aspect  than  in  the  case  of  the  theater.  Railroads,  let  us  note, 
are  usually  conducted  by  powerful  corporations ;  they  are  in 
trusted  with  the  lives  of  millions  of  people  every  day,  and  when 
in  their  management  there  is  the  slightest  departure  from  rigid 
care  and  surveillance,  the  newspaper  editor  ought  to  feel  per 
fectly  free  to  call  public  attention  to  it  and  demand  that  the 
dangerous  evil  be  corrected.  Then  imagine  an  editor  who  has 
just  received  his  annual  pass  from  the  superintendent  of  a  rail 
road  on  which  he  frequently  travels,  sitting  down  and  writing 
the  following  paragraph  touching  that  railroad  and  that  super 
intendent  : 


The  accident  which  occurred  on  the  New  York  and  Liverpool  Railroad 
last  week  is  shown,  by  the  results  of  the  coroner's  investigations,  to  have 
been  the  fruits  of  an  imperfect  system  of  signals  introduced  by  the  present 

superintendent,  Mr. (naming  the  gentleman  who  has  kindly  sent  the 

pass).     Mr. is  probably  a  very  excellent  gentleman  in  social  life,  but 

it  seems   to  us  that  he  is  out '  of  his  place  in  the  responsible  position  of 


DEAD-HEADING.  143 

superintendent  of  this  extensive  steam  thoroughfare.  It  is  clear,  according 
to  the  evidence,  that  his  defective  system  of  signals  is  wholly  responsible 
for  the  catastrophe  which  was  so  fruitful  in  suffering  and  death;  and  we 
warn  the  directors  of  the  New  York  and  Liverpool  Railroad  that  they 
cannot  afford  so  to  trifle  with  the  lives  of  passengers  as  to  retain  in  so 
important  a  position  as  that  of  superintendent  one  who  is  clearly  deficient 
in  the  good  judgment  requisite  to  enable  him  to  perform  its  duties  with 
perfect  safety  to  the  traveling  public. 

Under  the  supposed  circumstances,  are  there  many  editors 
living  who  could  write  the  supposed  paragraph  of  censure? 
If  not,  then  does  it  not  look  as  if,  under  this  system  of  Dead- 
Heading,  the  superintendent  and  directors  were  saying  to  the 
editor,  with  the  inspiration  of  the  theater  manager:  "Ride 
free  on  our  road ;  take  any  train  you  please,  as  often  as  you 
please ;  go  as  far  as  you  please ;  get  off  where  you  please  ;  come 
back  when  you  please ;  and  pay  nothing ;  but  —  if  you  see  any 
defect  in  our  road,  a  public  mention  of  which  might  injure  our 
business,  however  much  the  public  ought  to  know  it,  keep 
mum  ? ' ' 

I  know  that  there  are  many  well-meaning  and  conscientious 
journalists  who  will  differ  with  me  on  this  point,  possibly 
expressing  opposite  views  in  vigorous  language ;  but  I  think  I 
speak  without  any  mental  reservation  whatever  when  I  say  that, 
in  urging  the  abolition  of  the  practice  of  Dead-Heading,  I  am 
prompted  only  by  the  most  sincere  and  unselfish  wishes  for  the 
further  elevation  of  journalism. 

I  have  known  Dead-Heading  to  be  carried  on,  in  exceptional 
instances,  to  a  degree  little  less  than  disgraceful ;  have  seen  it 
take  such  ramifications  as  to  involve  whole  families,  the  heads 
of  such  families  being  editors  of  newspapers.  One  of  the 
meanest  Dead-Heads  I  ever  knew,  and  the  only  thoroughly 
mean  man  I  ever  met  among  practical  journalists,  not  content 
with  riding  free  year  after  year  over  a  certain  railroad,  passing 
members  of  his  family  over  it  free,  time  after  time,  and  occa- 


144  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

sionally  a  mere  friend,  who  was  no  relative  at  all,  on  conclud 
ing  once  to  change  his  residence,  moved  his  household  goods 
over  the  whole  length  of  the  railroad, —  a  hundred  and  twenty 
miles,  —  and  when  the  freight-bills  came  to  hand,  this  person 
had  the  "cheek"  to  take  them  to  the  superintendent  and  ask 
him  to  cancel  them  !  This  the  too-obliging  official  did ;  and 
thus  not  only  did  the  Dead-Head,  his  family  and  a  small  circle 
of  friends  travel  over  the  road  at  the  expense  of  the  corpora 
tion  that  owned  it,  but  his  chairs,  tables,  bedsteads  and  old 
stoves  and  crockery  also  enjoyed  the  stately  privilege  of  "  going 
dead-head  ' '  —  and  all  because  they  were  the  property  of  a  per 
son  who  was  the  editor  of  a  weekly  paper !  In  justice  to  the 
profession  —  and  I  certainly  should  be  the  last  to  do  it  injus 
tice —  I  must  say  that  I  never  knew  of  more  than  this  one  in 
stance  of  that  peculiar  kind  of  Dead-Heading,  and  that,  I  am 
sure,  it  would  be  universally  denounced,  by  journalists  who 
deserve  the  name,  as  "little  and  mean."  It  does  seem  to  me 
that  the  amount  of  assurance  displayed  on  that  occasion  is  only 
rivaled  in  history  by  that  of  the  unfortunate  murderer,  whe, 
having  killed  his  own  father  and  mother,  asked  the  court  to 
deal  mercifully  with  him,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  an 
orphan  ! 

When  I  was  in  San  Francisco,  I  one  day  met  a  casual 
acquaintance  who  was  "running"  a  weekly  paper.  He  was 
an  enterprising  and  thrifty  young  man  and  a  writer  of  some 
ability ;  but  he  was,  as  he  no  doubt  believed  he  had  a  right  to 
be,  an  inveterate  Dead-Head.  He  had  a  valise  in  his  hand, 
and  I  asked  him  if  he  had  "  been  traveling  "  ? 

"  I  have  been  up  at  Grass  Valley  a  week,"  he  said,  —  Grass 
Valley  being  a  considerable  mining  town  far  up  in  the  moun 
tains. 

"  Who  attended  to  your  paper?  " 


DEAD-HEADING.  145 

"  Oh,  I  put  it  in  such  a  shape  before  leaving  that  it  would 
nearly  run  itself,  and  left  Charlie  Stuart  in  charge." 
"  How  did  you  find  things  at  Grass  Valley?  " 
"  Pretty  good.     Most  of  the  mines  are  doing  a  fair  business. 
I  wrote  up  one  or  two  for  our  next  issue.     I  of  course  got  some 
advertisements  by  promising  to  do  so.     I  also  got  over  a  hun 
dred  subscribers  to  my  paper,  at  four  dollars  each. ' ' 
"  Very  fair  week's  work.     Expenses  heavy?  " 
"  Not  mine.     I  traveled  free  on  the  California  Pacific,  and 

at  Sacramento  I  called  on  Mr.  C and  got  a  pass  over  the 

Central  Pacific  to  Reno  and  back.  Then  I  traveled  free  from 
Reno  to  Grass  Valley  (twelve  miles)  and  back  on  the  stage. 
(Mighty  good  stage-line;  must  give  it  a  puff.)  And  —  would 
you  believe  it  ?  —  when  I  got  ready  to  leave  and  offered  to 
settle  my  hotel  bill,  the  proprietor  said  :  '  Never  mind.  That 's 
all  right.  We  don't  charge  editors  anything  here.  Always 
glad  to  see  them  come  and  take  a  look  at  our  place  and  the 
mines.'  Pretty  square  fellow,  that;  but  he'll  lose  nothing  by 
it.  He  shall  have  a  puff.  So,  the  whole  trip  cost  me  only 
sixty-five  cents,  and  that  was  for  '  incidentals.'  " 

That  is  what  I  call  a  piece  of  pure  and  successful  Dead-Head 
ing.     Between  four  and  five  hundred  miles  of  traveling  over 
two  different  railroads  and  a  stage-line,  and  a  week's  board  at 
a  first-class  hotel,  with  an  expenditure  of  sixty-five  cents  ! 
13  K 


146  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE  BOHEMIAN. 

THE  people  of  Bohemia  are  proverbially  of  a  roving  dispo 
sition,  probably  because  adverse  wars  have  sent  nearly 
whole  nations  of  them  into  exile,  and  on  that  account  the  terra 
"  Bohemian  "  is  applied  to  a  class  of  writers  for  the  press  who, 
lacking  fixedness  of  purpose,  and  generally  lacking  the  means 
or  faculties  necessary  for  carrying  out  any  very  great  purpose, 
wander  from  Sanctum  to  Sanctum,  from  city  to  city,  picking  up 
odd  jobs  of  reporting,  compiling,  proof-reading,  sketch-writing 
or  verse-writing.  The  majority  of  them  are  only  in  a  normal 
condition  when  they  are  "  dead  -broke, "  under  which  circum 
stances  they  are  disposed  to  regard  the  world  with  the  eye  of 
cynicism ;  but  they  become  happy  and  contented  on  receiving 
from  three  to  five  dollars  for  a  bit  of  work  occupying  a  day  or 
two,  with  which  amount  they  immediately  proceed  to  pay  room- 
rent  and  buy  some  victuals  "and  things." 

The  actual  "Bohemian  "  is  a  queer  character,  often,  but  not 
always,  without  very  great  journalistic  ability,  sometimes  well 
educated  and  not  infrequently  possessing  a  genius  for  writing 
poetry.  I  once  employed  a  Bohemian  occasionally,  when  there 
was  some  extra  reporting  to  be  done,  who  was  a  finished  scholar, 
and  could  speak  and  write  Latin,  Greek,  Spanish,  French  and 
German,  as  well  as  the  finest  English ;  yet  this  singular  man  was 
always  glad  to  get  a  stray  job  of  reporting  a  railroad  meeting 
or  a  cattle-show,  and  considered  himself  in  a  position  of  com 
parative  opulence  when  he  received  two  or  three  dollars  for  the 
task.  How  he  lived  I  never  exactly  knew,  but  think  I  was  com 
petent  to  make  a  pretty  fair  guess.  Certainly  he  could  not  have 


THE  BOHEMIAN.  147 

enjoyed  many  of  the  good  things  of  this  world,  as  he  probably, 
from  one  paper  and  another,  seldom  received  an  aggregate  of 
over  five  or  six  dollars  a  week.  I  occasionally  gave  him  half 
an  hour's  proof-reading  to  do,  when  I  could  as  well  have  done 
it  myself,  the  paper  being  a  weekly,  that  I  might  have  a  pretext 
for  handing  him  half  a  dollar  or  so  when  I  felt  pretty  sure  he 
sorely  needed  it,  and  he  was  generally  delighted  to  receive  that 
amount  for  his  work.  The  poor  fellow  was  proud,  and  I  would 
not  have  thought  of  offering  him  a  sum  of  money  as  a  gift.  He 
never  suspected  my  motive  in  giving  him  little  jobs  of  that  kind, 
as  I  usually  contrived  on  such  occasions  to  seem  fairly  "  driven 
to  death  "  by  a  press  of  business.  If  he  had,  I  believe  he  would 
have  declined  the  work,  even  if  hungry;  but  as  it  was,  he  always 
went  away  cheerful  and  contented,  with  the  full  sense  that  he 
had  earned  his  money  by  "  helping  me  out  "  at  a  busy  time. 

There  are  many  men  classed  among  the  "Bohemians"  who 
are  not  by  any  means  to  be  despised  —  many  who  possess  bril 
liant  minds ;  some  are  poets,  of  grand  and  pathetic  conception  ; 
some  could  write  a  history  with  Macaulay ;  but  untoward  cir 
cumstances,  sometimes  domestic  troubles  and  disappointments, 
have  disgusted  them  with  life  itself,  and  set  them  adrift  in  the 
newspaper  world,  without  an  aim,  without  a  guide,  with  little  to 
live  for,  blasted  hopes  to  look  back  upon,  an  empty  future  to 
look  forward  to,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  days  of  which  they  can 
say,  "We  have  no  pleasure  in  them."  They  are  all  poor  — 
they  live  poorly  —  many  of  them  have  narrow  and  gloomy 
apartments  in  the  upper  stories  of  tall  buildings,  where,  with 
the  meanest  surroundings,  they  live  and  write,  often  in  hunger, 
and  from  which  they  daily  issue  in  the  threadbare  clothes  which 
they  have  carefully  brushed  to  make  them  look  as  decent  as 
possible. 

N.  G.  Shepherd,  a  New  York  writer  for  the  press,  died  in  that 


148  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

city  a  few  years  ago,  and  I  remember  that  some  of  the  news 
papers  in  mentioning  his  decease  spoke  of  him  as  a  -''Bohe 
mian,"  stating  that  irregular  habits  were  the  immediate  cause 
of  his  death.  He  died  but  a  day  or  two  after  writing  his  last 
poem,  which  was  based  on  the  fact  that  a  few  days  before,  "at 
the  Morgue  in  New  York,  the  attire  of  a  drowned  woman  alone 
remained  for  identification."  Poor  Shepherd  sold  the  poem  to 
Appletori 's  Journal,  in  which  it  was  promptly  published,  after 
ward  going  the  rounds  of  the  press.  I  here  reproduce  it,  with 
the  remark  that,  "  Bohemian"  or  not,  "irregular  habits"  or 
not,  it  was  no  little  mind  that  conceived  these  touching  lines : 

ONLY  THE  CLOTHES  THAT  SHE  WORE. 

There  is  the  hat 

With  the  blue  vail  thrown  round  it,  just  as  they  found  it, 
Spotted  and  soiled,  stained  and  all  spoiled  — 

Do  you  recognize  that  ? 

The  gloves,  too,  lie  there, 

And  in  them  still  lingers  the  shape  of  her  fingers, 
That  some  one  has  pressed,  perhaps,  and  caressed, 

So  slender  and  fair. 

There  are  the  shoes, 

With  their  long  silken  laces  still  bearing  traces 
To  the  toe's  dainty  tip  of  the  mud  of  the  slip, 

The  slime  and  the  ooze. 

There  is  the  dress, 

Like  the  blue  vail,  all  dabbled,  discolored  and  drabbled  — 
This  you  should  know,  without  doubt,  and,  if  so, 

All  else  you  may  guess ! 

There  is  the  shawl, 

With  the  striped  border,  hung  next  in  order, 
Soiled  hardly  less  than  the  light  muslin  dress, 

And  —  that  is  all. 


THE  BO  HE  All  AN.  149 

Ah,  here  's  a  ring 

We  were  forgetting,  with  a  pearl  setting; 
There  was  only  this  one  — name  or  date?  —  none ! 

A  frail,  pretty  thing;  „ 

A  keepsake,  maybe, 
The  gift  of  another,  perhaps  a  brother 
Or  lover,  who  knows  ?  him  her  heart  chose, 

Or,  was  she  heart-free? 

Does  the  hat  there, 

With  the  blue  vail  around  it,  just  as  they  found  it, 
Summon  up  a  fair  face  with  just  a  trace 

Of  gold  in  her  hair? 

Or  does  the  shawl, 

Mutely  appealing  to  some  hidden  feeling, 
A  form,  young  and  slight,  to  your  mind's  sight 

Clearly  recall  ? 

A  month  now  has  passed, 
And  the  sad  history  remains  yet  a  mystery, 
But  these  we  keep  still,  and  shall  keep  them  until 

Hope  dies  at  last. 

Was  she  the  prey 

Of  some  deep  sorrow  clouding  the  morrow, 
Hiding  from  view  the  sky's  happy  blue? 

Or  was  there  foul  play  ? 

Alas  !  who  may  tell  ? 

Some  one  or  other,  perhaps  a  fond  mother, 
May  recognize  these,  when  her  child's  clothes  she  sees ; 

Then  — will  it  be  well? 

Mr.  George  Manson,  an  experienced  reporter,  contributed  a 
series  of  sketches  on  "  Bohemianism  "  to  a  New  York  publica 
tion  a  few  years  ago,  and  as  they  are  very  true  to  the  life,  the 
reader  need  not  feel  sorry  if  I  here  quote  from  them  • 
13* 


1 50  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

There  have  probably  been  more  Bohemians  in  literature  than  in  real  life. 
Henri  Murger,  a  famous  French  author,  was  the  first  to  immortalize  the 
Bohemians  by  writing  about  them.  He  wrote  an  interesting  novel,  entitled, 
"  Scenes^ de  la  Vie  de  Boheme,"  in  which  he  created  the  wanderers,  as  it 
were,  into  a  nation.  His  work  was  eagerly  read,  especially  by  those  young 
persons  who  believed  that  they  possessed  a  Bohemian  nature,  or,  if  they  did 
not,  desired  to.  The  original  of  the  word  "  Bohemian  "  is  found  in  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  "  Quentin  Durward."  In  that  book  there  is  mention  made 
of  a  certain  gipsy,  who  is  termed  "  the  Bohemian."  But  the  literary  Bohe 
mian  has  little  in  common  with  the  Bohemian  of  gipsy  life.  Like  the  latter, 
he  is  unconventional,  ignores  some  of  the  laws  of  religion  (sometimes 
morality),  and  has  no  prejudices ;  but  there  the  resemblance  ends. 

Thackeray  has  given  us  one  or  two  pictures  of  "  Bohemians  "  in  the 
characters  of  "  Fred.  Bayham"  and  "  Col.  Altamont,"  the  latter  a  fair  speci 
men  of  the  more  disreputable  class.  Thackeray  himself,  while  in  Rome, 
lived  in  the  realms  of  Bohemia,  and  haunted  the  Greco  and  Lepri. 

Dickens,  above  all  other  writers,  knew  Bohemia  well.  He  has  given  us 
many  characters  who  possessed  the  true  Bohemian  sentiment,  mingled  with 
a  good  deal  of  evil  and  dishonesty  not  necessarily  belonging  to  Bohemian- 
ism.  Every  one  remembers,  for  instance,  the  character  of  "  Harold  Skim- 
pole"  in  "Bleak  House."  His  philosophy  was  essentially  Bohemian. 
Skimpole's  friends  obtained  situations  for  him,  but  somehow  or  other  he 
never  succeeded,  because  he  "  had  no  idea  of  time  or  money."  In  conse 
quence  of  this  slight  defect  of  character,  he  never  kept  an  appointment, 
never  knew  the  value  of  anything,  and  of  course  could  not  be  expected  to 
transact  business  properly  and  with  profit.  "So,"  says  Dickens,  "he  had 
got  on  in  life,  and  here  he  was  !  He  was  very  fond  of  reading  the  papers, 
very  fond  of  making  fancy  sketches  with  a  pencil,  very  fond  of  nature,  very 
fond  of  art.  All  he  asked  of  society  was  to  let  him  live.  That  was  n't 
much.  His  wants  were  few.  Give  him  the  papers,  conversation,  music, 
mutton  and  coffee,  landscape,  fruit  in  season,  a  few  sheets  of  Bristol-board, 
and  a  little  claret  —  and  he  asked  no  more.  He  was  a  mere  child  in  the 
world.  '  Go  your  several  ways  in  peace.  Wear  your  red  coats,  blue  coats, 
lawn  sleeves,  put  pens  behind  your  ears,  wear  aprons,  go  after  glory,  holi 
ness,  commerce,  trade,  any  object  you  prefer;  only  let  Harold  Skimpole  live.1 " 

Skimpole  was  lazy.  He  had  the  greatest  sympathy  with  the  work 
of  the  world,  although  not  industrious  himself.  "  I  can  dream  of  them," 


THE  BOHEMIAN.  I$I 

says  he,  speaking  of  the  negro  slaves ;  "  I  can  lie  down  on  the  grass  in  fine 
weather,  and  float  along  an  African  river,  embracing  all  the  natives  1  meet, 
as  sensible  of  the  deep  silence,  and  sketching  the  dense  overhanging  tropi 
cal  growth  as  accurately  as  if  I  were  there.  I  don't  know  that  it  is  any 
direct  use  —  my  doing  so  — but  it  is  all  I  can  do,  and  I  do  it  thoroughly." 
Another  of  his  peculiarities  was  that  he  did  not  feel  any  vulgar  gratitude 
toward  any  one.  He  almost  felt  as  if  they  ought  to  be  grateful  to  him  for 
giving  them  the  opportunity  of  enjoying  the  luxury  of  generosity.  He  was 
very  remiss  in  the  matter  of  paying  his  bills,  and  yet  his  philosophy  on  the 
subject  of  debt,  though  probably  not  shared  by  his  creditors,  is,  to  say  the 
least,  very  entertaining.  He  owed  his  physician.  "  If  he  had  those  bits  of 
metal  or  thin  paper  to  which  mankind  attach  so  much  value,  to  put  them  in 
the  doctor's  hand,  he  would  put  them  in  the  doctor's  hand ;  but  not  having 
them,  he  substituted  the  will  for  the  deed.  If  he  really  meant  it,  if  his  will 
was  genuine  and  real,  which  it  was,  it  appeared  to  him  the  same  as  coin, 
and  canceled  the  obligation." 

When  he  owed  his  rent,  he  thought  there  was  something  grotesque  in  his 
landlord's  seizing  his  furniture  (which,  by  the  way,  he  had  not  paid  for) ; 
"thus  making,''  said  he,  "my  chair  and  table  merchant  pay  my  landlord 
my  rent.  Why,"  argued  he,  "should  my  landlord  quarrel  with  him? 
If  I  have  a  pimple  on  my  nose  that  is  disagreeable  to  my  landlord's  peculiar 
ideas  of  beauty,  my  landlord  has  no  business  to  scratch  my  chair  and  table 
merchant's  nose,  which  has  no  pimple  on  it.  His  reasoning  seems  defec 
tive."  A  butcher,  to  whom  he  owed  a  considerable  amount,  remonstrated 
with  him  for  eating  his  meat.  Says  he,  "  Sir,  why  did  you  eat  spring  lamb 
at  eighteen  pence  per  pound  ?  "  "  '  Why  did  I  eat  spring  lamb  at  eighteen 
pence  per  pound,  my  honest  friend?'  said  I,  naturally  amazed  by  the  ques 
tion;  'I  like  spring  lamb.'  This  was  so  far  convincing.  'Well,  sir,'  said 
he,  '  I  wish  I  had  meant  the  lamb  as  you  meant  the  money.'  « My  good 
fellow,'  said  I,  'pray,  let  us  reason  like  intellectual  beings.  How  could  that 
be  ?  It  was  impossible.  You  had  the  lamb,  and  I  have  not  the  money. 
You  could  not  really  mean  the  lamb,  without  sending  it  in,  whereas  I  can 
and  really  do  mean  the  money  without  paying  it.'  " 

Alfred  Jingle  was  another  pretty  good  specimen  of  the  Bohemian ;  but 
the  very  best  specimen  we  have  in  the  works  of  Dickens  is  the  famous 
"  Wilkins  Micawber."  He,  like  many  of  the  lower  class  of  Bohemians  of 
all  large  cities,  was  very  generally  in  debt.  The  only  visitors,  in  fact,  that 


1$2  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

were  ever  seen  at  his  house  were  creditors,  who  came  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  and  night,  some  of  whom  were  quite  ferocious.  Sometimes  he  would 
become  low-spirited  in  consequence  of  these  obligations.  He  called  himself, 
on  divers  occasions,  "a  foundered  bark,"  "a  fallen  tower,"  "a  beggared 
outcast,"  "a  shattered  fragment  in  the  Temple  of  Fame,"  "a  straw  on  the 
surface  of  the  deep,"  and  accused  the  "  serpents  "  of  having  "poisoned  his 
life-blood."  But  he  soon  recovered  from  these  fits  of  despondence.  In  the 
morning  he  has  been  known  to  make  motions  at  his  throat  with  a  razor,  and 
an  hour  later  to  polish  his  boots  and  go  down  the  street  humming  a  tune. 
On  one  sad  occasion  he  said,  "  the  God  of  day  had  gone  down  upon  him," 
but  before  noon  of  the  same  day  he  played  a  lively  game  of  "  skittles."  His 
rule  for  obtaining  happiness  was  very  sensible,  and  many  in  our  day  would 
be  much  happier  if  they  were  strictly  guided  by  it.  "  He  observed  that  if  a 
man  had  twenty  pounds  a  year  as  his  income,  and  spent  nineteen  pounds, 
nineteen  shillings  and  sixpence,  he  would  be  happy;  but  if  he  spent  twenty 
pounds,  one  shilling,  he  would  be  miserable."  After  waiting  some  time  "  for 
something  to  turn  up,"  he  said  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  make  a  leap — a 
spring —  but  it  only  ended  in  his  "  throwing  down  the  gauntlet"  to  society, 
saying:  "  Here  I  am.  I  can  do  such  and  such  things,  and  I  want  to  earn 
so  much.  Now,  take  me,  or  I  will  not  be  responsible." 

Micawber's  manner  of  paying  his  debts  was  a  very  striking  and  original 
one.  He  borrowed  a  shilling  of  David  Copperfield  and  gave  him  an  order 
on  Mrs.  Micawber  for  the  amount,  and  she,  it  is  needless  to  say,  had  no  money 
to  reimburse  him.  Poor  innocent  Traddles,  who  had  lent  Micawber  over 
forty  pounds,  felt  happy  when  Mr.  Micawber,  just  before  leaving  London, 
began  to  say  to  him,  in  the  presence  of  others :  "  To  leave  this  metropolis 
and  my  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Traddles,  without  acquitting  myself  of  the  pecu 
niary  part  of  the  obligation  I  owe  him,  would  weigh  upon  my  mind  to  an 
insupportable  extent.  I  have  therefore  prepared  for  my  friend,  Mr.  Thomas 
Traddles,  and  I  now  hold  in  my  hand,  a  document  which  accomplishes  the 
desired  object.  I  beg  to  hand  to  my  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Traddles,  my  I  O 
U  for  forty-one,  ten,  eleven-and-a-half,  and  I  am  happy  to  recover  my  moral 
dignity,  and  to  know  that  I  can  once  more  walk  erect  before  my  fellow-men." 

In  London  there  is  a  large  class  of  Bohemians  called  "penny-a-liners." 
They  go  about  in  quest  of  accidents,  misfortunes  and  various  items  of  news. 
They  go  to  the  Bow  Street  office,  the  various  courts  of  justice,  and  they  are 
paid  a  penny  a  printed  line  (whence  the  name)  for  the  matter  they  write 


THE   BOHEMIAN.  I$3 

They  often  sell  the  same  paragraph  to  several  papers,  and  in  that  way  make 
a  decent  living.  Sometimes  the  City  Editor  "  cuts  down  "  their  articles, 
thus  depriving  them  of  "  tuppence,"  or  "  thrippence,"  at  a  clip,  which,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  is  missed.  But  these  writers  belong  to  the  lower  walks  of 
literature.  The  London  Bohemia,  Thackeray  says,  "  is  a  pleasant  land,  a 
land  where  men  call  each  other  by  their  Christian  names,  where  most  are 
poor,  and  where,  if  a  few  oldsters  do  enter,  it  is  because  they  have  pre 
served  more  tenderly  than  other  folks  their  youthful  spirits  and  the  delight 
ful  capacity  of  being  idle." 

The  American  Bohemian  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  Bohemian.  He  does 
not  so  readily  mount  to  the  philosophical  height  of  the  "poor  devil  author," 
and  abandon  all  ambition  to  get  on  in  life.  It  happens  often  that  the  Bohe 
mian  reporter  has  an  eye  to  an  editorship ;  the  Bohemian  writer  of  stories 
for  the  weekly  paper  has  thoughts  of  a  contribution  to  the  North  American 
Review  ;  that  the  North  American  Reviewer,  in  turn,  is  thinking  of  writing 
a  book;  and  the  American  book-writer  will  not  be  satisfied  until  he  has 
written  something  which  shall  make  his  name  truly  immortal,  and  at  the 
same  time  "  fill  his  pockets."  Still,  there  are  persons  in  the  "  literary  "  line, 
in  New  York,  for  example,  who  may  well  be  styled  Bohemians.  But  they 
are  not  to  be  pitied  as  we  have  reason  to  pity  the  French  Bohemian.  The 
newspaper  writer  in  this  country  is  paid  a  fair  price  for  his  work,  and  has 
been  known,  besides  living  comfortably,  to  save  money  out  of  his  income. 

After  all,  the  question  recurs,  What  is  a  Bohemian  ?  What  is  Bohemian- 
ism  ?  Is  there  any  bright  side  to  it  ?  can  one  be  a  Bohemian  without  drink 
ing  too  much  intoxicating  drink;  or  forever  smoking  a  clay  pipe;  or  idling 
away  precious  time ;  or  dressing  in  the  oldest  of  clothes,  and  out  of  taste  at 
that ;  or  disbelieving  in  the  grandness  of  anything,  or,  in  fact,  possessing 
the  many  and  varied  attributes  which  characterize  the  persons  whom 
some  papers  call  Bohemians  ?  It  seems  to  us  that  the  proper  answer  is  in 
the  affirmative.  If  the  Bohemian  in  olden  times,  when  the  name  first  came 
to  be  used,  was  nothing  more  than  a  lover  of  art,  and  a  worker  at  it,  should 
it  not  mean  the  same  to-day  ?  And  those  who,  possessing  unfortunate  and 
never-to  be-denied  traits  of  character,  may  call  themselves,  and  succeed  in 
being  called,  Bohemians,  may  we  not  say  of  them,  as  truly  "  good  society  " 
says  to  would-be  apostles  and  "  shoddyites  "  —  "  Calling  yourselves  after  us 
does  not  make  you  one  of  us;  you  cannot  have  entrance  to  the  Inner 
Temple." 


154  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

We  would  say  in  conclusion  that  the  true  Bohemian  is  unconventional 
where  he  thinks  it  is  wise  to  be  so ;  is  liberal,  thus  being  true  to  the  spirit 
of  the  age ;  and  lives  by  the  way,  and  not  for  the  future,  carrying  out  in  life 
what  George  Arnold,  the  Bohemian  poet,  has  so  sweetly  said  in  poetry : 

Oh,  I  was  made  for  the  present  time ! 
I  sing  my  song  or  weave  my  rhyme, 
From  fear  of  future  troubles  free  — 
For  they  are  naught  to  me ! 

I  will  not  mourn  for  the  silent  past, 

Though  pleasures  fine  it  brought  to  me ; 

The  present  moments  cannot  last 
But  if  they  leave  no  vacancy, 
The  past  is  naught  to  me. 

And  thus  I  find  in  the  present  time, 

That  life  is  fresh  and  sweet  to  me; 
I  still  will  sit  and  weave  my  rhyme ; 

The  future  soon  will  present  be, 

And  bring  new  joys  to  me. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE  PRINTERS. 

THE  "Printer,"  as  he  is  called  by  the  outside  world,  is 
styled  a  "  Compositor  "  in  all  printing-offices.  He  is  the 
man  who  takes  from  the  "case"  the  pieces  of  metal  (called 
"types")  with  an  "h,"  an  "a"  and  a  "t"  molded  on  one 
end  of  each,  respectively,  and  places  them  together  in  the 
proper  order  when  the  word  "  hat"  is  to  be  spelled.  It  does 
not  take  him  long  to  do  it,  either.  Then  he  follows  this  word 


THE   PRINTERS.  155 

by  a  space  —  a  piece  of  metal  like  a  type  would  be  if  shortened 
by  having  the  letter  cut  squarely  off  the  end  —  then  another 
word  follows,  another  space,  and  so  on  till  a  line  is  formed,  and 
so  on  till  another  is  formed  on  top  of  that,  and  so  on  till  his 
"stick"  (the  little  iron  frame  in  which  the  types  are  set)  is 
full  and  ready  to  be  emptied  on  the  "  imposing-stone,"  or  on 
a  "galley,"  as  the  case  may  be. 

There  are  perhaps  few  reading  persons  who  have  not  some 
general  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  types  are  put  together,  and 
of  the  simple  process  of  stamping  the  inked  letters,  by  whole 
columns  or  whole  pages,  upon  the  white  paper,  by  means  of  the 
printing-press.  But  the  general  public  has  little  knowledge  of 
the  daily  and  nightly  scenes  in  the  composing-room  of  a  great 
daily  newspaper,  or  of  the  hundreds  of  details  of  the  printer's 
work.  To  give  a  vivid  idea  of  the  interior  of  the  composing- 
room,  I  cannot  do  better,  as  the  scenes  are  the  same  in  all  large 
offices,  than  to  reproduce  a  picture  of  the  composing-room  of 
the  New  York  Tribune,  and  to  this  end  must  again  make  a  draft 
on  one  of  Mr.  Cummings's  sketches  before  alluded  to  as  having 
been  published  a  few  years  ago  in  Packard 's  Monthly : 

Come  into  the  composition-room  at  five  minutes  of  seven  in  the  evening. 
The  desk  near  the  door  is  littered  with  copy.  Fifty  printers  are  lounging 
about  the  office  in  their  shirt-sleeves  and  aprons,  smoking,  distributing  type, 
correcting  proofs,  swearing  over  the  poor  quality  of  the  gas,  and  asking 
what  number  jumped  out  first  in  the  evening  drawing  of  the  Kentucky  or 
Delaware  lottery.  One  man  is  employed  solely  in  cutting  the  copy  into 
sections  or  "takes,"  and  marking  directions  for  the  type  in  which  the  cap 
tions  and  sub-captions  of  articles  are  to  appear.  Every  strip  of  copy  is 
dotted  with  guide-posts  and  sign-boards,  so  that  the  compositor  cannot  go 
astray.  Here  are  twenty  men  carrying  off  twenty  pieces  or  "  takes  "  of  one 
article.  We  will  suppose  it  to  be  an  editorial  of  Mr.  Greeley's.  The  copy- 
cutter  slashes  it  into  twenty  pieces  of  about  twenty  lines  each.  The  first 
piece  he  marks  with  a  blue  crayon  "  I  G,"  the  second  piece  "  2  G,"  the 


156  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

third  "  3  G,"  and  so  on  up  to  "  20  G."  The  compositors  take  these  pieces 
from  the  hook  as  fast  as  they  are  out  of  copy,  and  as  soon  as  each  piece  is 
put  in  type  the  matter  is  placed  on  a  brass  galley  (similar  to  a  board  with  a 
light  strip  of  wood  on  each  side),  and  a  small  square  piece  of  white  paper, 
marked  "  6  G,"  or  whatever  number  designates  the  piece  just  finished  by 
the  compositor,  is  deposited  at  its  side.  You  may  find  "2"  and  "3  G" 
hugging  each  other  on  the  galley,  followed  by  "  5,"  "  6  "  and  "  7  G,"  with 
a  space  left  for  "  4  G"  when  finished.  By  the  arrangement  described,  a 
dozen  or  twenty  articles  may  be  in  process  of  composition  at  the  same  time. 
One  manuscript  will  be  numbered  "  I  XX,"  and  so  on.  The  commercial 
review  generally  goes  out  marked  "  Com.,"  the  markets  "Ma.,"  the  Wash 
ington  special  "  Wa.,"  Young's  editorial  "I  Y,"  etc.,  and  Hassard's  spicy 
criticisms  "Has.,"  etc. 

The  Tribune  compositors,  with  the  exception  of  a  half  dozen  men  who 
work  exclusively  by  daylight,  reach  the  office  about  one  P.  M.  Three  or  four 
hours  are  then  consumed  in  distributing  the  type  for  the  night's  work.  From 
five  to  six  they  drop  off  to  supper,  returning  about  ten  minutes  of  seven. 
As  the  hour  of  seven  approaches  they  swarm  around  the  copy-hooks  like 
bees  about  a  sugar-cask.  At  five  minutes  of  seven  the  Chairman  of  the 
office  shouts : 

"Well,  it's  time  —  sail  in.     Who's  first  out?" 

This  "first  out"  is  an  important  matter.  It  takes  in  the  "  fattest"  slice 
of  copy  in  the  office,  and  this  frequently  turns  out  a  five-  or  an  eight-dollar 
job  in  one,  two,  or  three  hours.  The  "  first  out "  goes  from  one  number  to 
another  on  each  succeeding  night. 

"  Eighteen 's  first  out!  Number  Eighteen,  come  up  to  the  bull-ring !" 
shouts  the  Chairman. 

Eighteen  delicately  slips  his  "take  "  from  the  hook  and  drifts  to  his  case, 
amid  the  ironical  oh's  and  ah's  of  his  companions,  who  kindly  offer  him 
fabulous  sums  of  money  for  his  luck. 

"  Number  Nineteen  !  "  cries  the  Chairman.  Nineteen  "snakes  "  his  take 
from  the  hook. 

"  Number  Twenty ! "  and  Twenty  follows  suit,  and  thus  they  go  until 
every  man  is  supplied  with  copy.  The  men  lay  their  copy  on  their  cases, 
and  stand,  stick  in  hand,  but  not  a  type  is  picked  up  until  at  precisely 
seven  o'clock,  when  the  Chairman  cries : 

"  Time  !     S-1-i-n-g  'em  !  " 


THE   PRINTERS.  157 

The  type  rattle  in  fifty-five  sticks  at  once,  and  for  ten  minutes  hardly 
anything  is  heard  but  the  steady  "click,  click"  of  the  metal  letters  within 
the  steel  sticks. 

The  proof-room  bell  rings,  and  the  bell-boy  runs  up  the  tin  box,  and 
draws  therefrom  a  proof-sheet. 

«'  Proof  for  Number  — !  "  yells  the  boy. 

Some  droll  typo  remarks  :  "  Oh,  no,  that  can't  be  —  must  be  some  mis 
take  somewhere!  " 

As  No. — happens  to  be  a  notoriously  incorrect  compositor,  a  general 
laugh  follows.  No. —  retorts  with  an  intimation  that  the  droll  typo  is  suf 
fering  from  an  attack  of  the  jim-jams,  and  a  steady  stream  of  jokes  and 
sarcastic  allusions  follow,  until  some  witty  genius  says,  in  a  grave  voice: 

"Now  we'll  have  the  opening  chorus!"  accompanying  it  with  a  song, 
usually  chanted  by  a  brother  typo  when  on  a  spree,  and  another  round  of 
laughter  follows. 

"  Who  's  got  9  G!  "  shouts  a  wiry  little  fellow,  adding,  sotto  voce,  "  Hang 
the  copy  !  I  believe  three  weeks  at  a  writing-school  would  n't  hurt  Greeley !" 

"  Hang  your  copy  on  the  hook  if  you  can't  read  it ! "  shouts  an  unsym- 
pathizing  companion. 

"  Oh,  he  can  read  it  well  enough ! "  chimes  in  another.  "  There  's  a  fat 
*  take '  on  the  agate  hook,  and  he  's  a  layin'  for  it  —  that 's  what 's  the  matter !" 

Here  Captain  Holmes,  a  veteran  one-legged  typo,  opens  the  door,  ten 
minutes  late,  as  usual,  and  sails  for  his  case  like  a  weather-beaten  frigate. 
The  rattle  and  clatter  of  fifty-five  sticks  beating  a  tattoo  on  the  cases  salute 
him.  The  captain  growls  like  a  boatswain  on  a  man-of-war,  then  tosses  one 
crutch  under  his  cases,  takes  off  his  coat,  and  propped  on  his  remaining 
crutch,  rolls  up  his  shirt-sleeves  with  the  majesty  of  an  Ajax  en  deshabille. 
He  shakes  up  the  few  type  remaining  in  his  case,  gets  his  copy,  and  imme 
diately  wants  to  know  if  "  any  gentleman  has  any  lower  case  agate  p's  to 
give  out  ?  " 

"  Come  here,  captain,"  shouts  a  comrade,  and  the  captain  stumps  off, 
and  returns  with  a  fist  full  of  letters,  which  he  dumps  in  his  p  box.  Then 
the  captain  begins  composition.  In  ten  minutes  a  row  breaks  out.  The 
captain  discovers  a  nest  of  b's  in  his  p  box,  and  shouts  out: 

"  Ah,  Number  Twenty,  what  did  you  give  me  when  I  went  to  your  case  ?" 

"Gave  you  what  you  asked  for,  of  course  —  lower  case  agate  b's." 

"  Yu-free  dam !  I  asked  for  p's-for-putty,  and  you  gave  me  b's-for-butter !" 
14 


158  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

As  the  captain  is  known  as  an  inveterate  borrower,  a  roar  of  laughter  breaks 
from  the  whole  room,  and  the  captain  subsides  into  a  low,  lion-like  growl. 

Here  a  comrade  enters  the  room,  and  says  that  he  knows  nothing  about 
the  row,  but  he  will  bet  five  dollars  that  the  captain  is  right,  for  he  never 
knew  him  to  be  wrong  in  his  life.  Derisive  cheers  follow,  and  the  cap 
tain's  indignation  again  flames  forth,  and  gradually  subsides  into  the  stereo 
typed  growl. 

A  long  silence,  dotted  with  the  "  click,  click  "  of  the  type,  follows.  At 
ten  o'clock  Clement  comes  up-stairs,  and  designates  the  articles  to  go  in  on 
the  first  side  of  the  paper.  Sam  Walter,  the  old  and  trusty  night  foreman, 
whose  Chesterfieldian  qualities  have  endeared  him  to  every  printer  who  has 
stuck  a  type  in  the  Tribune  office  for  the  last  eighteen  years,  dumps  the 
type  in  the  form,  amid  much  tribulation  over  the  work  of  some  "  infernal 
blacksmith,"  who  has  corrected  nonpareil  type  with  minion,  and  the  pages 
slide  off  to  the  stereotyped  s  room. 

At  midnight  the  copy  gives  out.  Clement  is  sent  for  and  asked  for  copy. 
He  has  none. 

"  Shall  I  let  off  a  couple  of  phalanxes  ?  "  inquires  Kimball. 

"  No,  sir,"  is  the  reply  ;  "  I  expect  a  four-column  telegraphic  report  of 
Stanton's  speech  at  Cleveland." 

"  Bogus  is  in  order.  Put  your  names  down  on  the  slate  as  fast  as  you  're 
out  of  copy,"  cries  Kimball,  and  down  go  a  dozen  names.  When  copy 
gives  out  the  compositors  are  put  to  work  on  matter  never  used  in  the 
paper.  This  is  termed  "bogus  matter."  The  office  allows  the  men  this 
privilege,  because  it  would  be  unjust  to  require  them  to  hang  around  the 
office  waiting  for  copy,  in  the  dead  hours  of  night,  without  appropriate 
remuneration.  By  two  A.M.  Stanton's  speech  is  all  in.  The  men  are  divided 
into  seven  phalanxes,  which  are  let  off,  phalanx  after  phalanx,  as  their 
services  are  no  longer  needed. 

"Have  you  got  'good-night'  from  Washington  yet,  Clem?"  asks 
Kimball. 

"Yes;  Jim  Young*  shut  up  an  hour  ago,  but  the  Associated  Press  is 
telegraphing  its  usual  mess  of  stuff  about  the  Land  Office  and  the  Statistical 
Bureau.  Let  off  four  phalanxes  !  " 

Kimball  shouts,  "  First,  third,  fifth,  and  seventh  phalanxes  close  up  and 
slope ! " 

*  The  Washington  correspondent. 


THE   PRINTERS.  159 

The  wearied  typos  drop  their  sticks,  and  totter  down  the  iron  stairs.  At 
2.30  A.  M.  Dr.  Wood  comes  up  from  the  editorial  room,  and  tosses  a  blue 
tissue  sheet  of  paper  on  the  table,  with  the  words  "  Good  Night"  thereon. 

"No  more  copy!  Here's  a  proof  for  the  Correcting  Phalanx!"  comes 
from  Sam  Walter,  and  the  work  of  the  typo  is  done. 

The  type  is  pitched  into  the  pages,  which  must  be  in  the  stereotype 
room  by  three  A.  M.,  for  the  paper  to  catch  the  mails,  and  after  a  hard  half- 
hour's  sweating,  fretting,  swearing  and  tearing,  the  newspaper  ship  is 
launched  for  the  day,  and  by  four  A.  M.  a  dull  rumbling  in  the  lower  regions 
announces  that  the  presses  are  masticating  paper,  thoughts  and  ideas  that 
will  be  scattered  throughout  the  Union  before  the  morning  hour  again  rolls 
around. 

The  Tribune  compositors  earn  from  $20  to  $35  per  week.  During  the 
war  bills  frequently  ran  up  to  $50  and  even  $70  per  week.  The  printers 
who  formerly  stuck  type  at  the  side  of  Horace  Greeley  have  died  out  of  the 
office.  Horace,  himself,  though  a  practical  printer,  rarely  visits  the  com 
posing-room.  The  last  time  the  writer  saw  him  at  work  in  the  composition- 
room  was  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  following  President  Lincoln's 
election,  when  he  ran  his  eye  over  the  type  of  the  New  York  election  table 
on  the  editorial  page,  and  suddenly  cried  out: 

"  Here,  Sam,  bring  me  a  bodkin ;  some  infernal  fool  has  spelled  Pittsburg 
with  an  'h!  '" 

And  though  the  pressmen  were  impatiently  clanging  the.  bells  for  the 
forms,  Horace  deliberately  drew  a  jack-knife  from  his  pocket  and  dug  the 
h's  out  before  he  would  allow  the  form  to  go  down. 

Mr.  Parton  visited  the  Tribune  office  one  morning  before 
daylight.  He  gives  a  graphic  description  of  it  as  it  then  was : 

We  are  in  the  Tribune's  press-room.  It  is  a  large,  low,  cellar-like  apart 
ment,  unceiled,  white-washed,  inky  and  unclean,  with  a  vast  folding-table 
in  the  middle,  tall  heaps  of  dampened  paper  all  about,  a  quietly-running 
steam-engine  of  nine-horse  power  on  one  side,  twenty-five  inky  men  and 
boys  variously  employed,  and  the  whole  brilliantly  lighted  up  by  jets  of  gas, 
numerous  and  flaring.  On  one  side  is  a  kind  of  desk  or  pulpit,  with  a  table 
before  it,  and  the  whole  separated  from  the  rost  of  the  apartment  by  a  rail. 
In  the  pulpit,  the  night  clerk  stands,  counts  and  serves  out  the  papers,  with 


l6o  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

a  nonchalant  and  graceful  rapidity,  that  must  be  seen  to  be  appreciated. 
The  regular  carriers  were  all  served  an  hour  ago ;  they  have  folded  their 
papers  and  gone  their  several  ways ;  and  early  risers,  two  miles  off,  have 
already  read  the  news  of  the  day.  The  later  newsboys,  now,  keep  drop 
ping  in,  singly,  or  in  squads  of  three  or  four,  each  with  his  money  ready  in 
his  hand.  Usually,  no  word  passes  between  them  and  the  clerk ;  he  either 
knows  how  many  papers  they  have  come  for,  or  they  show  him  by  exhibit 
ing  their  money ;  and  in  three  seconds  after  his  eye  lights  upon  a  newly- 
arrived  dirty  face,  he  has  counted  the  requisite  number  of  papers,  counted 
the  money  for  them,  and  thrown  the  papers  in  a  heap  into  the  boy's  arms, 
who  slings  them  over  his  shoulder  and  hurries  off  for  his  supply  of  the 
Times  and  Herald. 

In  his  "Life  and  Times  of  Horace  Greeley,"  Mr.  Ingersoll 
remarks : 

Instead  of  the  vast  folding-table  seen  twenty  years  ago  by  Mr.  Parton, 
we  should  now  find  a  number  of  folding-machines,  "fed"  by  boys,  very 
much  as  the  press  is  "  fed  "  by  men.  Into  one  of  these  machines  a  Tribune 
enters  in  one  large  sheet,  and  out  it  presently  drops,  folded  ready  for  the 
carrier  or  for  mailing.  The  immense  editions  of  the  Tribune  are  thus 
folded  in  an  incredibly  short  time.  Observing  the  wonderfully  rapid,  the 
almost  miraculously  delicate,  exact  movements  of  press  and  folding-machines, 
one  can  hardly  help  being  impressed  with  the  idea  that  they  are  living 
beings,  possessed  of  minds. 

The  same  writer  says  again : 

A  fact  which  will  strike  any  one  upon  a  visit  to  the  Tribune  office  is  what 
I  will  call  its  democratic  management.  Here  is  a  copy  of  a  notice  in  the 
composition-room :  "  Gentlemen  desiring  to  wash  and  soak  their  dis 
tributing  matter  will  please  use  hereafter  the  metal  galleys  I  had  cast  for  the 
purpose,  as  it  is  ruinous  to  galleys  having  wooden  sides  to  keep  wet  type  in 
them  locked  up.  THOS.  N.  ROOKER." 

Mr.  Parton  alludes  to  this  in  his  "Life  of  Horace  Greeley," 
and  thinks  it  must  have  taken  the  world  many  thousands  of 
years  to  arrive  at  that  word,  "gentlemen." 


THE   PRINTERS.  l6l 

There  is  no  higher  class  of  skilled  laborers  than  printers.  If 
compositors  may  be  rated  as  mechanics  —  although  their  call 
ing  almost  arises  to  the  dignity  of  art,  and  is  even  styled  the 
"  art  preservative  of  all  arts  "  —  they  are,  as  a  numerous  class, 
beyond  all  question  the  most  intelligent.  From  the  nature  of 
their  calling,  accustomed  to  familiar  contact,  although  in  a  frag 
mentary  way,  with  the  fresh  thoughts  of  writers ;  among  the 
first  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  passing  events ;  they  become  more 
or  less  familiar  with  the  great  questions  of  the  day,  discuss  them, 
and  form  opinions  of  their  own,  often  no  more  circumscribed 
than  those  of  the  editorial  writers  themselves.  Indeed,  many 
of  the  most  brilliant  writers  of  this  generation — journalists, 
novelists,  historians,  humorists  and  poets — have  risen  from  the 
"  case,"  have  been  practical  printers.  Franklin,  Greeley,  Ben 
nett,  Forney,  Prentice,  "  Artemus  Ward,"  and  a  host  of  others 
eminent  in  the  world  of  letters,  once  stood  at  the  case,  coats 
off,  arms  bared  to  the  elbows,  with  a  stick  in  one  blackened  hand, 
while  the  other  flew  back  and  forth  on  its  countless  errands 
snatching  up  the  "w's,"  the  "h's,"  the  capital  "  P's,"  the 
lower  case  "i's,"  and  the  quads  and  spaces. 

No  class  of  persons  have  a  finer  sense  of  humor  than  the  com 
positors  in  a  city  printing-office,  and  the  complete  history  of 
any  single  composing-room  would  have  a  good  deal  of  the 
"spicy"  in  it.  They  have  their  leisure  moments,  when  they 
give  way  to  a  spirit  of  fun  and  punning,  sometimes  of  the  most 
horrible  kind,  and  the  charting,  and  rallying,  and  bantering, 
take  the  most  active  shape  —  the  sharp  sally  and  keen  retort 
being  exchanged  with  great  rapidity.  The  blundering  of  a 
green  or  awkward  hand  is  a  source  of  much  merriment ;  and 
when  one  of  that  kind  happens  to  make  such  a  ridiculous  blun 
der  as  to  "  divide  "  the  word  "  healthy,"  or  the  word  "  horses," 
—  both  of  which  cases,  and  many  others  as  ludicrous,  I  have 


1 62  SECKETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

witnessed  in  the  course  of  my  experience,  —  he  "  never  hears 
the  last  of  it,"  unless  he  has  the  good  sense  to  take  it  good- 
humoredly,  in  which  case  the  rallying  is  soon  dropped. 

Occasionally,  the  exuberant  spirit  takes  the  form  of  practi 
cal  joking,  which  is  sometimes  characterized  by  an  amount  of 
recklessness  and  "deviltry"  scarcely  to  be  commended  —  a 
recklessness  not  surpassed  by  that  of  such  mischievous  people 
as  the  students  of  large  colleges.  For  example  : 

It  was  a  good  many  years  ago  that  I  was  engaged  in  proof 
reading  in  a  job  office  in  New  York.  The  sole  proprietor  was 
a  staid  old  gentleman,  very  strict,  very  systematic,  very  eco 
nomical,  very  thrifty,  very  religious.  He  did  not  believe  in 
sport  of  any  kind,  nor  under  any  circumstances,  and  regarded 
it,  of  course,  with  detestation  and  loathing  when  it  took  the  form 
of  injury  to  or  waste  of  property.  The  wanton  destruction  of 
one  cent  would  have  vexed  him  as  much  as  the  irrevocable 
loss  of  a  human  soul. 

One  day  I  sat  in  the  dingy  fourth-story  back  room  we  used  as 
an  office,  looking  over  some  work  with  this  stern,  spectacled  old 
man,  when  the  door  opened  and  a  person  came  in.  The  per 
son,  in  whose  face  I  fancied  I  saw  an  ordinary  twelve -mo  vol 
ume,  was  a  well-dressed  man,  evidently  a  business  man. 

"You're  Mr.  S ?"    he  said,  in  a  voice  that  quivered 

slightly,  as  if  from  the  exertion  of  ascending  three  flights  of 
stairs  with  no  time  to  waste. 

"Yes,"  replied  Mr.  S ,  laying  a  proof  down  and  look 
ing  up  inquiringly  over  his  spectacles. 

"  Well,"  returned  the  stranger,  "  I  run  a  hoop-skirt  factory, 
No.  13  C Street." 

"Yes?"   rejoined   Mr.   S ,  who,  like  myself,    evidently 

wondered  what  that  could  have  to  do  with  a  job  printing- 
office. 


THE  PRINTERS.  163 

But  for  the  man's  excited  manner,  I  might  have  surmised 
that  he  wanted  to  get  some  cards  or  circulars  printed. 

"  You  —  you  do,  eh  ?  "  said  Mr.  S ,  for  the  reason  that  he 

did  not  know  what  else  to  say. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  do,"  responded  the  visitor  ;  "  and  I  employ  six 
teen  girls. ' ' 

"Ah?   Sixteen?" 

"  Yes,  and  the  rear  of  my  establishment  comes  to  this  alley." 

He  pointed  toward  the  window,  which  looked  out  upon  a 
narrow  alley,  with  a  great  row  of  buildings  opposite  ;  and  I  now 
thought  I  could  begin  to  see  a  small  ray  of  light  in  the  direc 
tion  of  printers'  mischief. 

"  O,  right  opposite?  "  said  Mr.  S ,  on  whom  the  ray  of 

light  had  not  yet  dawned. 

"Yes,  right  acros's  the  alley.  These  girls  sit  at  work  near 
the  windows — -the  fifth-story  windows — just  across,  and  on  a 
level  with  the  windows  where  your  printers  are  at  work." 

"  One  story  above  this?  " 

"Yes." 

He  paused  for  breath. 

"How — how  do  they  get  along  this  hot  weather?"  asked 
Mr.  S ,  still  at  a  loss  for  any  pertinent  remark. 

Our  excited  visitor  did  not  reply  to  this  question,  but  de 
liberately  thrust  his  right  hand  in  his  trowsers-pocket,  and 
"  fumbled  "  as  if  feeling  for  a  pistol.  Thinking  he  might  be  a 
maniac,  possibly  a  dangerous  one,  I  watched  his  movements 
narrowly.  But  he  did  not  draw  a  deadly  weapon.  When  he 
once  more  drew  forth  his  hand  into  the  light  of  day,  he  held  in 
the  palm  thereof  about  twenty-three  pica  lower-case  w's,  three 
or  four  two-em  quads,  a  couple  of  two-em  dashes,  bright  and 
new,  jingled  them  under  Mr.  S 's  nose,  and  said  : 

"  Is  them  worth  anything,  sir  ?  " 


164  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

Mr.  S stared  at  the  man,  not  so  much  on  account  of  this 

extraordinary  piece  of  syntax  as  apparently  to  make  out  which 
he  was  —  an  agent  for  a  type-foundry,  or  a  person  of  unsound 
mind.  Failing  to  fathom  the  mystery,  he  said : 

"I  don't  quite  understand  you.  Have  you  type  to  sell? 
If  so— " 

"  No,  sir,"  interrupted  the  stranger,  again  jingling  the 
bright  new  types;  "I  have  'em  to  give  away.  But  what  are 
they  worth,  anyhow?" 

"Well,  when  we  buy  type  we  pay  about  a  cent  apiece  for 
such  as  that.  We  got  a  font  of  just  that  kind  last  week." 

"Worth  a  cent  apiece,  eh?"  rejoined  the  visitor.  "Well, 
all  I  have  to  say  is,  it  won't  take  long  to  make  you  a  bankrupt 
if  your  devilish  printers  keep  on  throwing  them  across  at  my 
girls,  and  keeping  them  from  their  work,  as  they  have  done  the 
last  two  or  three  days." 

"  What  !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  S .     "Are  they  mine?  " 

His  economical  soul  was  in  arms. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  manufacturer  of  hoop-skirts,  as  he  emptied 
the  types  into  Mr.  S — - — 's  hand,  which  the  latter  extended 
excitedly  to  receive  them.  "Those  are  merely  what  were 
thrown  in  at  my  girls  this  forenoon.  I  suppose  ten  times  as 
many  were  swept  out  this  morning,  from  yesterday's  work. 
One  this  morning  struck  one  of  my  girls  on  the  jaw,  and  hurt 
her  so  much  that  she  cried.  Now,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  if 
you  can  stop  such  doings.  They  waste  your  property  in  doing 
so,  —  for  I  understand  that  a  good  many  of  them  types  strikes 
the  wall  and  falls  down  into  the  alley,  — and  at  the  same  time 
they  keep  my  girls  from  doing  their  work,  —  for  they  have  to 
keep  watching  the  printers  all  the  time  for  fear  of  getting  hit 
in  the  eye,  —  and  I  pay  them  by  the  week  — ' ' 

"Good  heavens!  "  exclaimed  Mr.  S ,  forgetting  for  the 


THE  PRINTERS.  165 

moment  that  he  was  a  pious  man,  and  springing  from  his  seat. 
"  Come  up-stairs  with  me,  and  we  '11  see  about  such  carryings- 
on  ! — And  they  complaining  of  being  scarce  of  sorts  !  " 

The  two  left  the  office,  with  rapid  and  excited  strides,  to  go 
up-stairs,  and  I  proceeded  with  my  work,  losing  sight  of  the 
case  for  the  time  being ;  but  the  scene  that  took  place  in  the 
composing-room  was  afterward  described  to  me,  by  one  of  the 

"prints.,"  as  one  of  more  than  ordinary  richness.  Mr.  S • 

used  powerful  language  in  his  denunciation  of  "such  work ;  " 
made  vigorous  but  fruitless  inquiries  as  to  which  of  the  wicked 
compositors  had  done  it,  and  threatened  to  dismiss  the  whole 
force  unless  he  should  find  it  out ;  but  was  finally  pacified  by 
the  Foreman,  who  told  him  he  would  do  two  things:  (i) 
make  every  effort  to  discover  who  the  guilty  party  was,  and  if 
successful  at  once  discharge  him ;  (2)  exercise  an  amount  of 
surveillance  in  the  future  that  would  effectually  prevent  a  re 
currence  of  the  offense.  He  also  stated  to  Mr.  S that 

there  were  a  number  of  jobs  in  hand  that  ought  to  be  completed 
for  customers  as  soon  as  possible,  and  this  largely  influenced 
him  to  revoke  his  determination  to  dismiss  the  "whole  force." 
The  culprit  was  never  detected  (outside  of  the  composing- 
room),  but  as  the  specific  practical  joke  of  throwing  pica  lower 
case  w's  "and  sich  "  at  the  hoop-skirt  girls  was  deemed  to  be 
about  exhausted,  it  was  peremptorily  discontinued. 

In  the  Printer's  Art  there  is  of  course  a  system  of  nomen 
clature  not  entirely  familiar  to  the  whole  people ;  yet  it  seems 
to  me  that  any  one  ought  to  be  able  to  understand  the  plain 
English  used  in  the  following  description  of  a  scene  I  once 
witnessed  in  our  composing-room,  when  I  had  stepped  in  to 
give  some  instructions  concerning  a  dead  ad.,  of  a  column  in 
length,  and  to  say  that  it  need  not  be  kept  standing : 

As  I  entered  the  composing-room,  two  of  the  compositors, 


1 66  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

known  as  "little"  Billie  Crawford  and  John  Reddy,  were 
having  a  bit  of  a  wrangle,  merely  in  fun,  I  at  first  thought, 
when  Billie  remarked,  with  some  sarcasm : 

"  O,  yes;  you  might  get  through  with  a  good  deal  of  real 
work  in  the  course  of  the  day,  if  you  didn't  spend  half  your 
time  running  around  and  trying  to  pick  up  fat." 

"Exactly,"  retorted  Reddy;  "but  I  don't  set  up  in  the 
regular  business  of  stealing  sorts,  as  every  man  in  the  office 
knows  you  do  !  " 

"  Say  that  again,  and  I  '11  make  dead  matter  of  you  !  "  said 
Billie,  angrily. 

"  You  !  "  said  Reddy,  with  a  sneer.  "  Why,  you  're  as  con 
temptible  as  an  agate  hair-space  !  " 

"And  you,"  retorted  Billie,  "are  as  mean  as  a  bottle-shaped 
comma  !  " 

"Pooh!  You're  as  trifling  as  a  diamond  period!"  said 
Reddy. 

"Boys,"  said  I,  wishing  to  pacify  them,  "I  beg  that  you 
will  not — " 

"  It 's  his  own  ill-temper,"  Billie  interrupted;  "and  I  de 
spise  him  as  I  do  a  dirty  proof  in  nonpareil  or  agate  !  " 

John  Reddy  was  now  in  a  thorough  passion,  and  thinking 
that  such  language  could  not  be  justified  so  easily  as  a  line  of 
pica,  wide  measure,  laid  down  his  stick,  containing  three  or  four 
lines  of  leaded  brevier  that  he  had  just  set,  walked  around  the 
stand  that  was  between  them,  and  gave  Billie  a  hanging  inden 
tion  on  the  margin  of  the  ear.  Billie  was  engaged  in  dis 
tributing  a  dead  sheriff's  notice,  and  was  so  surprised  at  the 
attack  that  he  unfortunately  pied  nearly  a  stickful  of  solid  agate. 

At  the  stand  next  to  Billie's,  Charlie  Meagher  was  setting  up 
a  leader  in  bourgeois,  leaded,  with  full-face  head,  and  he  rushed 
to  the  spot,  stick  in  hand,  to  separate  the  angry  boys,  dropping 


THE  PRINTERS.  1 67 

his  rule  on  the  way.  But  Billie's  blood  was  up,  and  he  seized 
a  handful  of  lower-case  m's,  and  threw  them  at  Reddy,  one  or 
two  of  them  striking  Meagher  in  the  face. 

This  enraged  Charlie  himself,  as  he  was  rather  quick-tempered, 
and  he  seized  a  column-rule,  to  strike  Billie  with  it ;  but  Reddy 
had  got  over  his  anger,  and  was  magnanimous  enough  to  inter 
fere  to  prevent  his  being  hurt  by  Charlie,  and  he  did  so  by 
flourishing  an  old  side-stick  that  he  picked  up  from  the  floor, 
and  telling  Charlie  to  keep  back. 

At  this  point,  Charlie  Brittain,  a  heavy-browed,  spectacled, 
big- whiskered  old  "print.,"  and  a  fine  workman,  looked  up 
from  his  work  —  he  was  engaged,  by  the  way,  in  over-running 
a  paragraph  of  nonpareil  in  which  there  was  an  out  —  and  see 
ing  what  the  matter  was,  came  over  from  his  case  at  the  opposite 
side  of  the  room  to  pacify  and  correct  his  younger  comrades. 
Unfortunately,  at  the  time  he  approached,  Billie  seized  about 
a  line  of  long  primer  quads,  and  threw  them  at  Charlie  Meagher, 
and  one  of  them  struck  Brittain  fairly  on  the  nose.  The  good- 
hearted  old  compositor  was  also  very  quick-tempered,  and  he 
sailed  in,  not  caring  much  whom  he  should  hurt,  only  deter 
mined  to  hurt  somebody ;  and  being  near  the  imposing-stone 
at  the  time  of  being  struck  by  the  quad,  he  seized  a  foot-stick 
and  began  striking  out  at  random  among  the  three  excited 
compositors. 

The  scene  was  one  of  great  confusion,  and  at  this  important 
crisis,  John  Craig,  the  Foreman,  came  in  with  some  new  rules. 
He  was  in  a  great  hurry  to  lock  up  a  form  that  lay  on  the  im 
posing-stone,  and  one  which  ought  to  go  to  press  soon,  and  he 
rushed  up  and  seized  his  mallet  and  shooting-stick  before  he 
noticed  anything  wrong.  Even  then,  his  attention  was  first 
attracted  by  a  shock  to  the  imposing-stone,  caused  by  Billie 
Crawford  and  Charlie  Meagher,  who  had  got  clinched  and  were 


1 68  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

engaged  in  a  regular  struggle,  reeling  against  it.  Billie  stum 
bled,  and  his  elbow  knocked  down  a  planer,  some  leads  and  a 
number  of  quoins,  reglets,  and  other  furniture. 

Such  lean  matter  John  Craig  thought  it  simply  impossible  to 
justify,  and  he  registered  an  oath  that  if  they  did  not  at  once 
bring  out  he  would  make  even.  There  was  some  dead  matter 
on  a  galley  stowed  away  on  a  rack,  and  this  also  was  pied  by 
the  two  struggling  printers,  as  they  went  staggering  over  to  the 
wall.  Craig  became  very  angry  at  this,  and  seizing  a  bodkin 
he  threatened  to  run  in  and  make  solid  matter  of  them  if  they 
did  not  at  once  desist.  But  by  this  time  both  were  so  enraged, 
and  so  intent  on  indenting  one  another,  that  you  could  not 
have  inserted  a  brilliant  hair-space  between  them.  They  had 
now  clinched,  in  a  desperate  struggle,  and  went  rolling  and 
tumbling  over  like  turned  §'s ;  and,  rising  again,  went  swaying 
across  the  room  toward  some  unoccupied  cases,  just  touching 
the  corner  of  a  stand  where  Ol.  Reynolds  was  throwing  in  letter, 
and  knocking  down  a  pile  of  six-to-pica  leads  that  lay  on  his  case. 

The  uproar  was  now  so  great  that  the  Assistant  Foreman,  Joe 
Hunter,  who  had  just  finished  making-up,  and  was  planing  down 
a  form,  came  running  over,  with  mallet  and  planer  in  his  hands, 
and  in  his  excitement  came  in  contact  with  a  rack,  knocked 
down  a  galley  and  pied  seven  sticks  of  live  matter,  mostly 
special  notices  in  solid  nonpareil.  Several  others  who  were 
throwing  in  letter  —  among  them  two  compositors  named  John 
Boot  and  George  Williams,  and  another  named  Nichols,  who 
had  just  got  a  fat  take  from  the  hook  —  left  their  cases  and 
rushed  to  the  scene  to  assist  in  quelling  the  disturbance. 

The  culmination  of  this  unfortunate  affair  was,  that  in  the 
general  struggle  and  confusion  participated  in  by  the  contest 
ants  and  those  who  endeavored  to  separate  them,  an  imposing- 
stone  was  knocked  over,  a  chase  broken,  and  a  whole  form  pied. 
Billie,  who  was  lying  on  the  floor  at  the  time,  received  a  cut  on 


THE  PRINTERS.  169 

the  cheek,  which  cut  had  fallen  from  the  imposing-stone,  and 
was  intended  for  an  "  ad."  marked  "ni2deod3m."  An  unoc 
cupied  chase  which  was  also  lying  upon  the  imposing-stone  fell 
on  the  pi,  and  of  course  the  result  was  much  battered  type; 
and  this,  in  accordance  with  the  Foreman's  instructions,  was 
gathered  up  by  the  devil  and  thrown  in  the  hell-box. 

It  almost  seems  that  this  chapter  on  "The  Printers"  would 
be  incomplete,  if  it  did  not  embrace  the  following  graceful 
verses,  by  Mr.  Thomas  MacKellar,  which  I  find  in  his  work 
entitled,  "  The  American  Printer." 

SONG  OF  THE  PRINTER. 

Pick  and  click 

Goes  the  type  in  the  stick, 
As  the  printer  stands  at  his  case ; 
His  eyes  glance  quick,  and  his  fingers  pick 

The  type  at  a  rapid  pace; 
And  one  by  one,  as  the  letters  go, 
Words  are  piled  up  steady  and  slow  — 

Steady  and  slow, 

But  still  they  grow, 

And  words  of  fire  they  soon  will  glow ; 
Wonderful  words  that,  without  a  sound, 
Traverse  the  earth  to  its  utmost  bound ; 

Words  that  shall  make 

The  tyrant  quake, 

And  the  fetters  of  the  oppress'd  shall  break; 
Words  that  can  crumble  an  army's  might. 
Or  treble  its  strength  in  a  righteous  fight ; 
Yet  the  type  they  look  but  leaden  and  dumb, 
As  he  puts  them  in  place  with  finger  and  thumb ; 

But  the  printer  smiles, 

And  his  work  beguiles, 
By  chanting  a  song  as  the  letters  he  piles, 

With  pick  and  click, 
Like  the  world's  chronometer,  tick  !  tick !  tick  ! 


I/O  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

O,  where  is  the  man  with  such  simple  tools 

Can  govern  the  world  as  I? 
With  a  printing-press,  an  iron  stick, 

And  a  little  leaden  die, 
With  paper  of  white,  and  ink  of  black, 
I  support  the  Right,  and  the  Wrong  attack. 

Say,  where  is  he,  or  who  may  he  be, 

That  can  rival  the  printer's  power  ? 

To  no  monarchs  that  live  the  wall  doth  he  give,— 
Their  sway  lasts  only  an  hour; 

While  the  printer  still  grows,  and  God  only  knows 
When  his  might  shall  cease  to  tower. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

PROOF. 

IF  you  knew  nothing  whatever  of  surgery  or  anatomy,  and 
a  surgeon  should  tell  you  that  one  of  his  patients  had 
sustained  a  comminuted  fracture  of  the  body  of  os  humeri, 
you  might  surmise  that  it  was  something  very  dreadful,  but 
would  not  be  prepared  to  interpret  his  statement  as  meaning 
that  the  afflicted  person  had  got  the  bone  of  an  arm  smashed, 
about  half-way  between  the  shoulder  and  elbow.  Yet  this  is 
just  what  the  surgeon's  statement  would  mean.  So,  entirely 
unfamiliar  with  "the  press,"  you  wonder  what  a  printer  or 
editor  means  when  he  says  "Proof."  I  suppose  it  is  part  of 
the  mission  of  this  volume  to  explain  what  "Proof"  means; 
and,  as  an  assurance  of  the  entire  truthfulness  of  this  work,  I 
may  state  that  it  has  not  been  allowed  to  go  to  press  until 
proof  of  every  statement  made  in  it  has  been  obtained. 


PROOF.  I/I 

To  make  a  specific  illustration,  when  a  newspaper  column 
(or  galley)  of  type  has  been  set,  it  is  just  a  trifle  more  than 
probable  that  the  compositor,  or  the  several  compositors,  who 
placed  the  ten  thousand  separate  pieces  of  metal  in  a  certain 
uniform  order,  made  a  few  mistakes.  They  would  not  be 
imperfect  beings  if  they  did  not,  in  some  cases,  do  so.  But, 
as  we  wish  our  paper  to  be  as  nearly  correct  as  possible,  typo 
graphically  as  well  as  in  other  respects,  this  column  of  type  is 
laid,  with  the  letters  facing  the  ceiling,  upon  a  table  and  covered 
with  printing-ink ;  then  a  strip  of  white  paper  about  twice  as 
wide  as  the  column  is  laid  nicely  over  it,  and  a  pressure  applied 
sufficient  to  "  print "  the  letters  on  the  paper. 

This  paper  —  which  has  been  dampened  in  order  that  it 
might  receive  the  ink  more  readily  —  is  a  "  Proof,"  or  "  Proof- 
sheet,"  and  it  is  handed  to  the  Proof-reader  (or  to  the  Foreman 
or  writer,  or  both,  when  there  is  no  exclusive  Proof-reader 
employed),  and  he  reads  it  —  writing  in  the  margin,  with  pen 
or  pencil,  words,  letters  and  characters  to  indicate  what  cor 
rections  are  to  be  made.  He  sees  an  "a"  where  an  "r" 
ought  to  be,  and  he  draws  a  stroke  vertically  over  the  face  of 
the  former  and  writes  the  latter  in  the  margin  opposite,  and 
makes  a  leaning  stroke  on  the  right  of  it.  He  sees  the  word 
"lunch"  where  the  word  "link"  ought  to  be,  and  he  crosses 
out  the  former  and  writes  "  link  "  in  the  margin.  He  finds  an 
"i "  where  an  "  1  "  ought  to  be,  and  marks  the  mistake  in  like 
manner.  He  finds  a  turned  letter — a  letter  that  has  been  put 
in  upside-down  —  and  he  makes  a  short  straight  mark  under  it, 
and  draws  attention  by  making  in  the  margin  a  character  simi 
lar  to  the  printed  figure  9.  He  finds  a  word  repeated,  as  "  and 
the  the  arrest  was  made,"  (a  mistake  called  a  "doublet,")  and 
he  draws  a  line  over  the  superfluous  word,  and  in  the  margin 
makes  a  character  nearly  like  a  bow-knot.  He  finds  a  square 


1 72  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

black  spot  of  ink  between  two  words,  where  the  paper  ought  to 
be  left  white,  caused  by  a  space  sticking  up  even  with  the  faces 
of  the  letters,  and  he  draws  a  line  under  and  over  it,  and 
makes  a  cross  (x)  in  the  margin.  He. finds  an  "out" — that 
is,  he  finds  that  a  word  or  a  number  of  words  have  been  omit 
ted,  and  he  makes  a  caret  (A)  with  its  apex  between  the  two 
words  where  the  missing  word  or  words  belong,  and  writes 
them  in  the  margin.  His  course  is  the  same  when  it  is  a  letter 
or  comma  or  period  that  is  omitted.  He  finds  a  letter  or  word 
preceding  a  letter  or  word  which  it  ought  to  follow  instead, 
and  drawing  a  line  over  one,  then  down  between  them  and 
under  the  other,  he  writes  in  the  margin  "//•.,"  which  means 
"transpose."  He  finds  a  letter  of  a  different  size  from  the 
others,  and  marking  this  he  writes  "  w.  f"  in  the  margin, 
which  means  "wrong  font."  These  are  but  a  few  illustrations. 
There  are  probably  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  —  I  never  stopped 
to  count  them  —  different  kinds  of  typographic  errors,  to  mark 
each  of  which  the  Proof-reader  has  a  uniform  and  conventional 
character,  and  with  these  various  characters  he  is  fully  as  familiar 
as  any  one  is  with  the  letters  A,  B,  C,  or  the  figures  i,  2,  3. 

Almost  every  one  who  reads  newspapers  occasionally  sees 
typographic  errors  of  the  simplest  kind,  which  have  either 
escaped  the  eye  of  the  Proof-reader,  or,  having  been  marked  by 
him,  been  overlooked  by  the  person  doing  the  correcting.  In 
the  hurry  of  newspaper  work,  a  few  mistakes  will  creep  in  every 
day.  When  the  newspaper  reader  sees  the  word  "then" 
spelled  with  two  "n's,"  he  thinks,  perhaps,  that  any  one  ought 
to  be  able  to  see  typographic  errors  at  a  glance,  and  that  Proof 
reading  cannot  require  any  great  care.  But  he  is  mistaken.  It 
is  one  of  the  hardest  jobs  in  newspaper  work,  and  is  as  much  a 
business  as  type-setting.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  good  Proof 
readers  are  proportionally  scarcer  than  good  editors. 


TYPOGRAPHIC  ERRORS,  1/3 

Authors  and  editors  of  books  are  often  indebted  to  the 
Proof-reader  for  the  correction  of  errors  which  they  have  over 
looked.  I  care  not  how  careful  a  writer  is,  or  how  much  time 
he  has  spent  in  the  preparation  of  his  book,  the  Proof-reader 
is  certain  to  discover  some  errors.  Indeed,  the  author  himself, 
when  he  sees  the  proofs  of  his  book,  often  finds  in  them  the 
grossest  errors,  which  he  has  failed  to  discover  in  his  manu 
script.  When  one's  language  goes  into  print  it  seems  to  take 
on  a  new  life,  and  to  lose  in  some  measure  the  personality  it 
formerly  enjoyed,  when,  as  manuscript,  it  was  nearer  to  its 
author,  and  when  he  was  somewhat  blind  to  its  faults,  as  a  man 
is  often  blind  to  the  faults  of  his  child.  When  the  Proof 
reader  discovers  what  he  considers  an  incorrect  word  or  expres 
sion,  he  calls  the  author's  attention  to  it  by  drawing  a  line 
under  it  in  the  proof,  making  a  note  of  interrogation  (?)  in 
the  margin,  and  writing  what  he  thinks  would  be  the  proper 
word.  Should  the  author  differ  with  the  Proof-reader,  he  erases 
the  corrections,  and  the  matter  stands  as  set  according  to  his 
manuscript ;  but  should  he,  as  is  often  the  case,  perceive  that 
the  Proof-reader  is  right,  he  simply  erases  the  note  of  interro 
gation,  and  the  correction  is  made  at  his  expense  or  at  the 
expense  of  the  publishers.  Correcting  in  the  proofs  what 
were  faults  of  the  manuscript  is  expensive,  especially  where 
whole  paragraphs  are  stricken  out  or  added,  involving  often  the 
overrunning  and  rearranging  of  many  pages.  Authors  ought 
to  understand  this  fully ;  but  many  do  not,  and  are  sometimes 
shocked  at  the  expense  occasioned  by  correcting  in  the  proof 
errors  that  are  too  often  the  result  of  careless  preparation  of  copy. 

To  give  a  clear  idea  of  proof-reading,  I  here  reproduce  from 
Mr.  MacKellar's  "American  Printer"  two  pages  showing  what 
a  proof-sheet  looks  like  after  the  reader  has  marked  the  errors  on 
it,  and  how  it  appears  after  the  corrections  have  been  made : 
15* 


2 


AN  EXAMPLE  OF  PROOF-SHEET, 

SHOWIH9  THE  MANNEE  IN  WHICH   EEEOE8   OF   THE   PEESS  AEE   MAEKED   FOE  COEEECTIOIT. 

laj     THOUGH  several  differing  opinions  exist  as  to 
the  individual  by  wpfom  the  art  of  printing  was 
first  discovered;   yet  all  authorities  concur  in 
admitting  Peter   Schoeffer  to  be  the  person  3 
who  invented  cast  metal  types,  having  learned 
™      the  art-e£  of  cutting  the  letters  from  the  Gut- 
6.y     tembergs^  he  is  also  supposed   to  have  been 
';$(     the  first  whoengraved  on  copper  plates.     The7/-/ 
following  testimony  is  preseved  in  the  family,  8     / 


*°D>'  Peter    Schoeffer,    of    Gernsheim,    perceiving  ^ 
*i  \J/     his   master   Fausts  design,  and  being   himself 
12^  rdesirous\ardently)  to  improve  the  art,  found 
out    (by  the    good    providence  of   God)    the 
method   of    cutting   (ineulendi)   the    characters  18 
in  a  matrix,  that  the  letters  might  easily  be 
fi/  /   singly  cast  I    instead  of   bieng    cut.      He    pri-  12    •  / 
I4j_       vately   cut    matrices\_for    the  whole    alphabet: 
Faust  was    so    pleased  with  the  contrivan 
/that  he  promised  ^eter  to  give  him  Ins^only 
ic  /(jaughter    Christina    in    marriage    a/promise  3     &  f 

/which  he  soon  after  performed.A/'^ 

19  aj/  (But    there   were^many   dijgfculties    at    first     no 
with   these   letters,   as   there    had   been   before 


20    , 


with  wooden   ones,  t)*€  metal  being   too 


to  support  the  fopce  of  the  inpression  :   but  9  s~^  / 
this    defect   was    soon    remedied,    by    mixing 

'  S^      21  ja 

a  substance  with  the  metal  which  sufficiently  ^ 
0    hardep^d  it/ 

(and  wnen  ne  dnowea  ni* 
jfwm  t/te 

V 


te6& 


PROOF-SHEET  AS  CORRECTED. 

Explanations  Explanations 

iwrongietter.      THOUGH  several  differing  opinions  exist  as  to 

the  individual  by  whom  the  art  of  printing  was  2  upside-down. 

first  discovered;    yet  all  authorities   concur  in 

admitting  PETER    SCHOEFFER    to    be    the  scap.tais. 

person  who  invented  cast  metal  types,  having 
4D0°uUtWet;take  learned  the  art  of  cutting  the  letters  from  the 
5  Co1°pneriod?ad  Guttenbergs  :  he  is  also  supposed  to  have  been 
6?weenweo"rds.  tlie  firsfc  wno  engraved  on  copper-plates.  The  7  Hywpahuetned 

following  testimony  is  preserved  in  the  family,  8  L^ter  miS8- 
9  Bad  spacing,  by  Jo.  Fred.  Faustus,  of  Aschaffenburg  : 

6  More  space 
between  lines. 

L0  grip*."*'      'PETER  SCHOEFFEK,  of  Gernsheim,   perceiv-  ssmancapi. 
ulwS3Efc-  inS  hig  Caster  Faust's  design,  and  being  him- 
cL^sedpia°ceS.  self  ardently  desirous  to  improve  the  art,  found 
out    (by    the    good    providence    of    God)    the 
method  of  cutting  (incidendi)  the  characters  in  nAST^i£ 

it  stand." 

a  matrix,  that  the  letters  might  easily  be  singly 


cast>   instead  of   being    cut.      He  privately  cut 
ups.tick"  mafrices  for  tne  whole  alphabet:    and  when  he  is  An  -out.- 
showed  his  master  the   letters  cast  from  these 
matrices,  Faust  was  so   pleased  with  the  con 
trivance,  that  he  promised   Peter  to  give  him  "  ^rp0cngfsii 
hig    Qnly    Daughter    Christina    in    marriage,    a  3  ^  kVmanea 
promise  which  he  soon   after   performed.      But  18N0?Ua  n" 
there  were    as    many   difficulties    at  first  with 


tnese  letters,   as  there    had    been    before  with 
wooden  ones,   the  metal  being  too  soft  to  sup-  ''"SjflSSU* 
port  the  force  of  the  impression  :  but  this  defect  9  ciose  np. 
was  soon  remedied,  by  mixing  the  metal  with  a  12  words  to 

change  places. 

substance  which  sufficiently  hardened  it.' 

175 


l?6  SECRETS   OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

In  his  sketches  showing  "  How  a  Newspaper  is  Made,"  pub 
lished  in  Packard's  Monthly,  Mr.  Cummings  thus  alludes  to 
John  C.  Robinson,  one  of  the  Tribune's  famous  Proof-readers : 

Robinson  is,  without  doubt,  the  fastest  proof-reader  in  the  world.  He 
marks  his  .corrections  on  the  side  of  the  proof-sheet  without  ceasing  his 
reading.  A  quick-eyed  copy -holder  is  required  to  follow  Robinson's  tongue, 
even  on  reprint  copy.  Robinson  himself  has  an  eye  like  a  hawk,  and,  in 
reading  a  proof-sheet,  his  eyes  are  generally  at  least  five  lines  beyond  his 
tongue.  I  have  known  him  distinctly  to  enunciate  a  column  of  fine 
agate  type,  Tribune  measure,  in  nine  minutes.  In  October,  1863,  he  was 
timed  by  Benjamin  L.  Glesby  and  S.  T.  Selleck,  two  of  the  best  compositors 
ever  employed  on  the  Tribune,  when  he  read  and  marked  the  proof-sheet 
corrections  of  fourteen  columns  of  solid  nonpareil  in  an  hour  and  twenty 
minutes.  This  was  done  on  a  wager  for  seven  dollars.  The  sheets  were 
afterward  carefully  read  by  an  experienced  proof-reader,  and  but  two  typo 
graphical  blunders  (both  turned  s's)  discovered. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  the  man  who  is  a  compe 
tent  Proof-reader  must  have  an  excellent  memory,  a  sharp 
eye,  a  quick  mind,  good  judgment,  some  knowledge  of  the 
various  languages,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  past  and 
passing  events. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

TYPOGRAPHIC   ERRORS. 

WHEN  a  man  writes  anything  to  appear  "in  print,"  if 
there  is  anything  he  does  not  want  to  see  in  it,  it  is  a 
typographic  error  —  a  wrong  letter  instead  of  a  right  "one,  or  a 
wrong  word  where  a  right  one  ought  to  be,  especially  when  it 
distorts  the  sense,  as  it  often  does  in  the  latter  case,  transforming 
a  well-formed  and  high-sounding  sentence  into  a  superior  article 


TYPOGRAPHIC  ERRORS.  1/7 

of  bosh.  Some  typographic  errors  are  highly  amusing,  except 
to  those  immediately  concerned,  and  to  them  they  are  a  source 
of  much  tribulation.  When  one  writes  a  lofty  editorial,  and  it 
passes  through  the  hands  of  some  careless  compositor  and  proof 
reader  with  the  word  " tooth"  for  "truth,"  "eggs"  for  "ages," 
"maternal"  for  "material,"  and  "infernal"  for  "imperial," 
he  may  well  be  pardoned  for  wishing  that  several  people  would 
drop  dead. 

I  once  wrote  a  serial  for  a  weekly  paper,  in  one  chapter  of 
which  the  word  "malingerer"  (a  soldier  who  "plays  sick"  to 
shirk  duty)  occurred.  Conscious  of  the  great  probability  that 
it  would  appear  as  "  maligner  "  in  the  eyes  of  the  compositor,  I 
took  the  trouble  to  write  a  note  to  the  proof-reader,  calling  his 
attention  to  the  word,  and  particularly  requesting  him  to  be 
careful  not  to  allow  the  wrong  word  to  appear ;  nevertheless, 
despite  all  my  pains,  he  did  overlook  it,  and  the  readers  of  my 
romance  learned  for  the  first  time  that  a  soldier  who  feigns 
sickness  for  the  sake  of  exemption  from  duty  is  a  "  maligner," 
no  matter  whether  he  has  "  lied  on  "  anybody  or  not. 

Here  is  a  copy  of  an  advertisement  which  once  appeared  in  a 
San  Francisco  paper  with  which  I  was  connected ;  and  although  I 
felt  somewhat  annoyed  when  the  person  most  interested  came  in 
and  called  my  attention  to  it,  I  could  not  help  laughing  when  I 
took  the  second  look  at  the  last  line  and  noted  its  very  droll 
appearance : 

Phil.  J.  Gerhardy, 

STALL  112,  NEW  ADDITION  TO 

California   Marltet, 

Entrance  on  Pine  Street, San  Francisco. 

American  Beef,  Veal,  Mutton,  Lamb,  Pork,  etc., 

Of  the  B  Questality,  always  on  hand. 

M 


178  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

The  "B  Questality"  does  not  seem  to  mean  much  of  any 
thing  in  the  English  language.  Any  one  will  see  that  "  Best 
Quality"  was  what  was  intended,  while  those  not  familiar  with 
the  printer's  art  may  wonder  how  such  a  mistake  could  have 
occurred.  Easily  enough.  A  "wrong  letter"  or  two  had  been 
marked  in  the  proof,  and  to  replace  it  the  printer  had  lifted  out 
several  types,  and  the  space,  probably,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
word  "Quality,"  and  without  his  observing  it,  the  letters 
"est"  got  shifted  over  and  joined  the  "ality"  of  the  word 
"  Quality."  So,  when  he  put  the  "  Qu  "  and  space  in,  he,  with 
vigilance  relaxed,  it  must  be  confessed,  put  them  in  immediately 
following  the  "B,"  and  the  paper  went  to  press  with  a  lone 
some-looking  capital  letter,  and  a  word  of  four  syllables  not  to 
be  found  in  our  vocabulary.  In  a  Boston  paper  I  find  a  ridicu 
lous  error  that  must  have  occurred  substantially  in  the  same  way. 
It  is  that  paper's  custom  to  place  over  its  regular  press  dispatches, 
in  small  caps :  [To  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS  ;]  but  on  the  occa 
sion  referred  to,  owing  to  some  such  accident  as  described 
above,  the  line  appeared  thus :  THE  ASS  [TO  OCIATED  PRESS]. 

As  one  of  the  most  amusing  cases  of  typographic  errors  which 
have  really  happened,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  a  California 
compositor  made  an  editor  say  about  a  contemporary  that  it 
stood  "in  the  front  rank  of  inferior  journals."  Of  course, 
"interior"  was  the  word  intended.  No  less  amusing  was  a 
slight  error  in  a  Pittsburg  paper  a  few  years  ago,  which  paper, 
in  a  summary  of  legislative  proceedings,  said  that  "the  bill 
was  pasted  over  the  Governor's  head."  An  intruding  "t"  in 
the  place  of  a  missing  "s"  made  "passed"  "pasted."  In  a 
well-known  book-printing  establishment  in  Philadelphia  the 
slightly  vexatious  typographic  errors  of  "canary  Scotchman" 
for  "canny  Scotchman,"  and  "storm-blown  fly"  for  "storm- 
blown  lily,"  are  known  to  have  occurred. 


TYPOGRAPHIC  ERRORS.  179 

I  once  knew  a  gentleman  who  published  a  newspaper  of  whose 
typographic  correctness  he  was  very  proud,  and  he  did  not 
scruple  to  say  so ;  and  I  remember  of  his  telling  me  once  that 
he  had  a  mind  to  offer  a  large  reward  for  any  typographic  error 
found  in  his  paper.  This  was  hyperbole,  of  course,  as  it  would 
be  very  hard  indeed  to  find  a  perfectly  "clean"  newspaper. 
Indeed,  a  newspaper  entirely  free  from  typographic  errors  would 
be  little  less  than  a  prodigy.  It  must  be  remembered  that  in  a 
newspaper  of  the  average  size  there  are  about  two  hundred 
thousand  separate  and  distinct  pieces  of  metal ;  and  it  will  be 
agreed  that  to  put  all  these  exactly  in  their  proper  places,  without 
so  much  as  one  slight  mistake,  and  that,  too,  chiefly  in  a  single 
day  or  night,  would  require  the  services  of  beings  who  have 
arrived  at  perfection  itself,  not  one  of  which  class  I  have  yet 
been  able  to  find. 

On  one  occasion  the  gentleman  alluded  to  published  a  few 
very  unfavorable  comments  on  one  of  my  works,  which  fact, 
taken  alone,  was  not  calculated  to  disturb  me  in  the  slightest 
degree.  On  the  contrary,  after  what  I  have  said  on  the  subject 
of  Book-Reviewing  in  another  chapter,  it  might  be  surmised 
that  I  was  rather  pleased  than  otherwise.  I  suppose,  really, 
(for  it  was  many  years  ago,)  the  book  was  fully  as  defective  as 
he  pronounced  it ;  but  I  happened  to  know  that  his  unfavorable 
allusion  to  it  (an  allusion  he  had  gone  quite  out  of  his  way  to 
make  at  all)  was  dictated  by  a  bit  of  personal  ill-feeling  that 
existed  between  us  only  for  a  short  time,  and  the  paragraph  con 
tained  within  itself  some  material  which  afforded  me  a  beauti 
ful  opportunity  for  revenge.  I  observed  that  it  was  not  entirely 
free  from  typographic  errors,  and  on  going  over  it  as  a  proof 
reader  I  found  nineteen  typographic  errors,  and  all  within  a 
paragraph  of  less  than  two  stickfuls  !  Remembering  how  he 
had  boasted  to  me  that  his  paper  was  a  marvel  of  typographic 


ISO  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

correctness,  I  clipped  the  paragraph,  pasted  it  on  a  sheet  of 
copy-paper,  marked  all  the  errors  in  the  usual  proof-reader's 
style,  and  sent  it  to  the  editor  with  my  compliments.  I  met 
him  a  day  or  two  afterward  in  the  street,  and  extending  a 
friendly  hand  he  said  : 

"By  Jove!  That  was  pretty  good;  but  I'll  take  my  oath 
it  went  in  accidentally  without  the  proof  being  read  at  all." 

While  accepting  his  friendly  hand,  I  pleasantly  suggested  that 
he  might,  with  great  good  judgment,  relate  that  romance  to 
members  of  a  certain  armed  body  connected  with  the  navy ; 
adding,  hyperbolically : 

"  Why,  my  dear  fellow,  that 's  nothing.  It 's  clean  com 
pared  with  some  other  matter  I  noticed  in  the  same  number  of 
your  paper  !  ' ' 

"  Spare  me  !  "  he  said. 

We  were  friends  ever  afterward,  and  I  even  subsequently  con 
tributed  many  a  column  to  his  paper,  which  columns,  I  am 
bound  to  say,  were  generally  printed  with  a  more  careful  regard 
to  typographic  correctness. 

There  are  extant  some  verses  bearing  on  the  subject  of  typo 
graphic  errors,  which  have  been  going  the  rounds  of  the  press 
for  years.  I  do  not  know  who  their  author  was,  but  I  think 
them  so  nearly  true  to  nature  as  to  be  worth  quoting  here  in 
full: 

REFLECTIONS 

UPON   RECEIVING   A    COPY    OF   MY    FIRST    POEM   PUBLISHED    IN 
A    NEWSPAPER. 

Ah  !  here  it  is  !     I'm  famous  now  — 

An  author  and  a  poet ! 
It  really  is  in  print !  ye  gods ! 

How  proud  I'll  be  to  show  it ! 


TYPOGRAPHIC  ERRORS.  iSl 

And  gentle  Anna  !  —  what  a  thrill 

Will  animate  her  breast, 
To  read  these  ardent  lines  and  know 

To  whom  they  are  addressed. 

Why,  bless  my  soul !  here  's  something  strange  ! 

What  can  the  paper  mean 
By  talking  of  the  "  graceful  brooks 

That  gander  o'er  the  green?" 
And  here's  a  T  instead  of  R, 

Which  makes  it  "  tippling  rill ;" 
"  We'll  seek  the  shad"  instead  of  "shade," 

And  "hell"  instead  of  "hill." 

"  They  look  so  " — what !  I  recollect 

'T  was  "  sweet "  and  then  't  was  "  kind ;" 
And,  now  to  think,  the  stupid  fool 

For  "bland"  has  printed  "blind." 
Was  ever  such  provoking  work  ? — 

'T  is  curious,  by  the  by, 
How  anything  is  rendered  blind 

By  giving  it  an  eye. 

"  Hast  thou  no  tears  "—  the  T 's  left  out ; 

"  Hast  thou  no  ears  "  instead. 
"  I  hope  that  thou  art  dear  "  is  put 

"  I  hope  that  thou  art  dead." 
Who  ever  saw  in  such  a  space 

So  many  blunders  crammed? 
"Those  gentle  eyes  bedimmed"  is  spelt 

"Those  gentle  eyes  bedamned." 

"  The  color  of  the  rose  "  is  "  nose," 

"  Affection  "  is  "  affliction  ;" 
I  wonder  if  the  likeness  holds 

In  fact  as  well  as  fiction  ? 
"  Thou  art  a  friend  "  —  the  R  is  gone  ; 

Who  ever  would  have  weened 
16 


1 82  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

That  such  a  trifling  thing  could  change 
A  "friend"  into  a  "fiend." 

"Thou  art  the  same  "  is  rendered  "  lame," 

It  really  is  too  bad ; 
And  here  because  an  I  is  out 

My  "lovely  maid"  is  "  mad;" 
They  drove  her  blind  by  poking  in 

An  eye  —  a  process  new ; 
And  now  they  've  gouged  it  out  again, 

And  made  her  crazy,  too. 

"  Where  are  the  muses  fed  that  thou 

Shouldst  live  so  long  unsung?" 
Thus  read  my  version  —  here  it  is  — 

"  Shouldst  live  so  long  unhung;" 
"  The  fate  of  woman's  love  is  thine," 

An  H  commences  "  fate;" 
How  small  a  circumstance  will  turn 

A  woman's  love  to  hate. 

I  '11  read  no  more !     What  shall  I  do  ? 

I  '11  never  dare  to  send  it ! 
The  paper  's  scattered  far  and  wide  — 
.    'Tis  now  too  late  to  mend  it! 
Oh,  Fame  !  thou  cheat  of  human  bliss  ! 

Why  did  I  ever  write  ? 
I  wish  my  poem  had  been  burnt 

Before  it  saw  the  light. 

Let 's  stop  and  recapitulate ; 

I've  d d  her  eyes,  that 's  plain ; 

I  've  told  her  she  's  a  lunatic, 

And  blind,  and  deaf,  and  lame. 
Was  ever  such  a  horrid  hash 

In  poetry  or  prose  ? 
I  've  said  she  was  a  fiend,  and  praised 

The  color  of  her  nose. 


PUNCTUA  TION.  1 8  3 

I  wish  I  had  that  editor 

About  a  half  a  minute, 
I  'd  bang  him  to  his  heart's  content, 

And  with  an  H  begin  it ; 
I  'djam  his  body,  eyes  and  nose, 

And  spell  it  with  a  D, 
And  send  him  to  that  hill  of  his ; 

He  spells  it  with  an  E. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

PUNCTUATION. 

THE  great  importance  of  punctuation,  and  correct  punctu 
ation,  at  that,  is  not  generally  appreciated,  insomuch 
that  many  very  intelligent  though  not  professionally  literary 
persons  write  their  letters,  or  other  documents,  without  ever 
thinking  of  such  a  thing  as  punctuating  them.  The  difficulty 
of  teaching  punctuation  cannot  easily  be  over-estimated.  It  is 
about  as  hard  to  teach  punctuation  as  to  teach  journalism  itself, 
for  the  same  reasons ;  namely,  there  are  so  few  rules  which  can 
be  safely  offered  as  guides.  The  general  ignorance  of  the  sub 
ject  is  so  vast  as  to  amount  to  a  kind  of  specific  darkness  of 
understanding.  Every  journalist  or  practical  printer  sees  de 
fective  punctuation,  or  no  attempt  at  punctuation  at  all,  in 
nineteen  of  every  twenty  letters  he  receives ;  he  will  see  defec 
tive  or  incomplete  punctuation  in  deeds,  wills,  mortgages,  and 
other  legal  instruments ;  he  will  see  bad  punctuation,  if  any,  in 
every  communication  or  advertisement  sent  in  by  an  "  outsider  " 
to  be  set  up ;  he  will  see  much  miserable  and  often  ridiculous 
punctuation  in  costly  business  signs.  On  the  punctuation  of 


1 84  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

sign-painters,  I  find  an  article  in  the  Philadelphia  Sunday  Tran 
script,  from  which  I  make  the  following  brief  extract : 

The  art  of  punctuation  is  not  thoroughly  understood  by  any  portion  of 
mankind,  except  a  certain  class  of  sign-painters  that  infest  this  city.  One 
could  not  learn  a  better  lesson  in  punctuation  than  by  taking  a  walk  of 
about  one  hundred  squares  through  the  business  quarters  of  the  city,  and 
surveying  the  numerous  signs  that  adorn  the  doors,  windows  and  walls  of 
buildings  in  which  goods  are  sold,  or  in  which  professional  men  "hang 
out."  A  few  examples  which  we  shall  give,  may  prove  eminently  useful 
to  such  as  desire  to  gain  knowledge  on  the  subject  present. 

Not  more  than  five  hundred  squares  from  the  State  House,  there  may  be 
seen  a  gilt  sign  over  a  modest  shop-door,  staring  boldly  at  the  passer-by, 
the  purport  of  which  is  as  follows,  to  wit : 

JOHN,  ANDERSON  SADDLERY  :  &  HARNESS  ! 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  learned  artist,  with  that  strict  adherence  to 
the  correct  principles  of  punctuation  for  which  sign-painters  are  proverbial, 
has  placed  a  comma  after  the  word  "John."  This,  besides  being  both  cor 
rect  and  elegant,  is  calculated  to  give  the  reader  of  the  sign  a  little  time  to 
breathe  after  pronouncing  "  John,"  before  he  tackles  "Anderson."  With 
his  accustomed  sagacity  and  foresight,  the  artist  has  left  a  perfectly  blank 
space  between  "Anderson"  and  "Saddlery,"  presuming,  no  doubt,  that 
the  reader  would  catch  enough  breath  at  the  comma  after  "  John  "  to  enable 
him  to  utter  two  words  in  succession  without  resting.  After  this,  however, 
repose  seems  to  be  needed ;  and  the  obliging  artist  has  tenderly  placed  a 
colon  (:)  after  the  word  "  Saddlery,"  which  will  give  every  reasonable  man 
all  the  breathing-time  he  could  ask  before  completing  his  perusal  of  the  sign. 
Then  come  the  "  &  Harness,"  topped  out  with  an  elaborate  note  of  admira 
tion  (!).  This  suggests  that  the  reader,  having  perused  all  the  words  of  the  sign, 
occupies  a  little  more  leisure  time  in  admiring  it.  And  who  could  help  it  ? 

The  writer  of  the  above,  while  on  the  subject  of  sign-painters, 
might  have  added  that  many  of  them  are  not  troubled  with  any 
very  delicate  sense  of  the  proprieties  of  orthography.  .1  have 
seen  in  Philadelphia  a  gilt  sign  probably  costing  a  hundred 


PUNCTUA  TION.  1 8  5 

dollars  that  read  thus  :  "  Steam  Dying  Establishment."  Dying 
is  seldom  pleasant  to  contemplate,  but  I  think  I  could  never 
reconcile  myself  to  dying  by  steam.  Such  a  form  of  death  — 
always  with  the  exception  of  being  talked  to  death  —  would 
appear  to  me  to  be  about  the  most  horrible  that  could  well  be 
devised.  In  these  days  of  collisions  and  explosions,  I  could 
scarcely  have  wondered  if  I  had  seen  the  sign  at  the  depot  of  a 
railroad,  or  the  main  wharf  of  a  steamboat  line,  but  I  confess 
to  some  surprise  at  seeing  it  in  a  fashionable  street,  with  a  mil 
linery  store  on  one  side  and  on  the  other  an  establishment  for 
the  sale  of  hosiery  "and  things."  Possibly  "dyeing"  was  the 
word  meant  by  the  sagacious  sign-painter.  If  so,  that  puts  a 
new  color  on  the  matter ;  and  I  venture  to  suggest  that  a  more 
liberal  knowledge  of  orthography  would  have  enabled  him  in 
this  case  to  do  his  work  with  more  "  e's". 

Defective  punctuation  —  often  accidental  —  is  sometimes 
very  amusing.  I  read  in  a  daily  not  long  ago  that  "  a  bycicle 
race  of  a  hundred  and  six  miles  was  won  in  five-and-a-half 
seconds,  less  than  eight  hours."  To  travel  a  hundred  and  six 
miles  in  five-and-a-half  seconds  was  a  marvelous  feat,  to  be 
sure ;  but  not  half  so  strange  as  the  fact  that  the  editor  thought 
it  necessary  to  state  that  that  amount  of  time  was  "less  than 
eight  hours."  Why,  who  ever  thought  that  five-and-a-half 
seconds  were  more  than  eight  hours,  or  even  so  much  ?  But 
then  drop  the  intruding  comma  after  "seconds,"  and  we  find, 
what  was  meant  to  be  said,  that  the  race  was  won  in  "  five-and- 
a-half  seconds  less  than  eight  hours."  Of  course,  every  one 
has  heard  how  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  was  shocked  when  he 
found  that  a  paragraph  in  his  sermon  on  the  horrors  of  intem 
perance  was  thus  reported  and  printed  in  a  country  newspaper : 
"Why,  only  last  Sabbath,  in  this  holy  house,  a  woman  fell 
from  one  of  those  seats  while  I  was  preaching  the  Gospel  in  a 
16* 


1 86  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

state  of  beastly  intoxication."  A  couple  of  commas  would 
have  charged  the  woman,  and  not  the  minister  himself,  with 
"beastly  intoxication." 

I  will  not  be  accused  of  over-estimating  the  importance  of 
correct  punctuation,  when  I  state  the  well-authenticated  fact 
that  not  long  since  the  erroneous  substitution  of  a  comma  for  a 
hyphen  involved  a  loss  to  the  United  States  Treasury  of  two 
million  dollars.  The  case  was  this :  A  bill  was  passed  by 
Congress,  and  became  a  law,  to  admit  free  of  duty  "tropic 
fruit-plants,  trees  and  seeds."  The  engrossing  clerk,  thinking 
he  knew  just  a  trifle  more  than  the  statesman  who  had  framed 
the  bill  (who,  by  the  way,  may  have  omitted  the  hyphen), 
placed  a  very  distinct  comma  after  the  word  "fruit,"  and  a 
law  was  placed  upon  the  statute-book  admitting  tropic  fruit,  as 
well  as  "plants,  trees  and  seeds,"  free  of  duty, —  which  ought 
to  have  had  the  effect  of  reducing  the  prices  of  oranges,  bananas 
and  lemons, —  and  before  the  mistake  was  discovered  and  rec 
tified,  it  caused  the  loss  in  revenue  of  the  sum  mentioned. 
When  a  comma  is  considered  worth  two  million  dollars,  what 
would  be  the  commercial  value  of  a  couple  of  two-em  dashes 
( ),  or,  say,  three  consecutive  notes  of  admiration 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

OUR  ORTHOGRAPHY. 


IT  need  scarcely  be  said  that  every  printer,  as  well  as  every 
writer  for  the  press,  ought  to  be  a  "good  speller;  "  and 
in  order  to  become  thoroughly  versed  in  orthography,  much 
research  and  an  excellent  memory  are  necessary.     Much  is  to 


OUR   ORTHOGRAPHY.  l8/ 

be  learned  that  has  not  been  learned  at  school.  There  are  a 
vast  number  of  words  in  common  use  in  the  English  language 
that  are  spelled  in  two  or  more  different  ways,  each  way  being 
"correct"  according  to  some  authority  or  other.  There  are 
many  words  as  to  the  orthography  of  which  our  two  leading 
lexicographers,  Webster  and  Worcester,  do  not  agree.  It 
therefore  becomes  necessary  for  a  printing-office  to  adopt  the 
uniform  style  of  one  or  the  other  with  regard  to  certain  words 
and  certain  classes  of  words  of  equivocal  orthography,  and 
"stick  to  it"  — "follow  Webster,"  or  "follow  Worcester," 
as  the  case  may  be.  Thus,  every  editor  and  every  printer 
ought  to  be  familiar  with  the  distinguishing  features  of  both 
Dictionaries,  each  of  which,  I  believe,  contains  over  a  hundred 
thousand  words. 

Probably,  no  great  harm  is  done,  yet  some  confusion  is 
caused  by  having  various  modes  of  spelling  the  same  word,  and 
the  proof-reader  makes  many  a  mark  with  his  pen  or  pencil  that 
would  be  unnecessary  if  we  had  one  universal  form  of  spelling 
each  word  in  our  language,  as  we  certainly  ought  to  have. 

In  the  course  of  my  own  literary  and  journalistic  work,  I 
have  seen  fit  to  "follow"  Webster;  not  on  account  of  the 
slightest  prejudice  in  favor  of  Noah  Webster  himself  or  his 
lexicon,  now,  like  Worcester's,  so  greatly  amplified,  but  because 
his  system  of  spelling  many  words  of  mooted  orthography  is  at 
least  one  little  step  in  the  direction  of  a  system  of  phonetic 
spelling,  which  I  long  to  see  adopted.  And  some  such  radical 
system  will  be  adopted,  though  possibly  not  during  the  exist 
ence  of  this  generation.  We  are  always  moving  in  the  direc 
tion  of  improvement,  and  I  confidently  claim  that  our  orthog 
raphy  will  be  improved  by  simplifying  it  —  that  our  language 
will  be  strengthened  by  being  made  plainer  and  more  easily 
written. 


1 88  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

The  phonetic  system  will  eventually  prevail,  and  our  present 
clumsy  orthography,  with  its  many  useless  letters,  will  be  repu 
diated.  Ay,  the  time  will  come  —  nor  is  it  anything  like  so 
distant  as  the  Age  of  Man  from  the  Azoic  Age  —  when  men 
will  look  back  on  the  literature  of  the  present  day,  and  laugh 
at  the  idea  of  spelling  the  word  "  through  "  with  seven  letters, 
when  two  (of  the  enlarged  alphabet)  will  be  found  sufficient ; 
and  of  spelling  "phthisis  "  with  eight  letters,  when  five  at  most 
will  do  the  office ;  or  "  sleigh  "  with  six  letters,  when  only  two, 
or  at  most  three,  will  be  necessary.  Reform  in  this  matter 
must  originate  in  the  United  States,  for  our  English  cousins  are 
so  very  conservative,  and  to  the  last  minute  will  stick  to  their 
"honour,"  their  "colour,"  their  "waggon  "  with  two  "g's," 
and  their  "traveller"  with  two  "(h)l's."  One  of  the  argu 
ments  against  the  proposed  phonetic  system  of  spelling  is  that 
it  would  soon  destroy  all  traces  of  the  dead  languages,  from 
which  probably  a  vast  majority  of  our  words  are  derived.  Sup 
pose  it  does  ?  Of  what  use  are  the  dead  languages  ?  Though 
even  your  dearest  friend  die,  why  should  you  keep  the  corpse 
in  the  house  forever?  We  must  bid  good-by  to  Latin  and 
Greek  some  day,  and  the  sooner  we  do  so  the  sooner  we  shall 
improve  our  own  language. 

I  know  it  will  be  said  that  many  terms  in  the  sciences  — 
astronomy,  anatomy,  pharmacy,  physics  —  and  in  the  law  are 
familiarly  known  among  nearly  all  civilized  people  of  various 
languages,  but  these  may  be  "Anglicized  "  or  "commonized," 
cut  down  or  so  arranged  as  to  become  a  part  of  the  English 
language,  or,  to  start  with,  a  part  of  a  universal  diplomatic 
language,  so  to  speak.  I  think  that  all  the  people  of  the  world 
will  eventually  speak  one  common,  plain  and  simple  language 
(it  may  be  the  English),  all  with  the  same  dialect,  same  pro 
nunciation,  same  accent  and  same  (when  writing)  orthography. 


OUR   ORTHOGRAPHY.  189 

As  a  prelude  to  this  "consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished," 
it  has  been  suggested  that  some  language  be  "adopted  as  a  uni 
versal  language,  for  each  person  in  the  world  to  learn  and 
master,  in  addition  to  his  own  local  tongue.  On  this  subject  I 
quote  from  an  article  written  for  a  well-known  journal  by  a 
gentleman  known  to  be  a  careful,  penetrating  thinker  on,  and 
investigator  of,  philology  and  kindred  subjects : 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  people  of  the  whole  world  will  one  day 
speak  the  same  language  —  that  eventually  all  living  languages  save  one 
will  be  abandoned,  and  that  this  favored  one  will  be  adopted  by  the  whole 
world,  and  become  the  common  tongue  of  all  mankind.  This  may  be  too 
much  to  hope  for.  At  least  it  is  not  likely  to  be  brought  about  for  hundreds 
and  possibly  thousands  of  years ;  but  there  is  something  that  may  be  accom 
plished  within  a  generation  or  two  that  will  answer  almost  as  good  a  pur 
pose.  A  common  language  may  be  agreed  upon  by  all  civilized  peoples, 
which  every  person  shall  learn  in  addition  to  his  own,  and  which  shall  be 
taught  every  child  so  soon  as  it  has  mastered  its  mother-tongue.  This  lan 
guage  might  be  the  English,  German,  French,  Spanish,  or  any  modern 
language  that  might  be  adopted,  say,  by  an  international  philological  con 
vention.  Such  a  system  once  accomplished,  no  man  need  know  more  than 
one  language  besides  his  own,  in  order  to  be  able  to  converse  freely  with 
people  of  all  quarters  of  the  civilized  world.  The  principle  would  then  be 
the  same  that  applies  now  to  medical  and  surgical  nomenclature.  A  physi 
cian's  prescription,  as  every  one  knows,  is  written  in  Latin,  which  is 
a  "  Common  Language"  for  the  use  of  the  medical  fraternity;  and,  there 
fore,  the  prescription  of  an  American  or  English  physician  is  read  with  the 
same  ease  by  an  American  or  English,  French,  Russian,  German,  or  Italian 
apothecary.  It  is  related — and  it  is  a  good  illustration  —  that  a  learned 
American,  traveling  in  Russia  a  few  years  ago,  whiled  away  the  long  hours 
of  a  tedious  journey  in  a  stage-coach  by  conversing  in  Latin  with  his  only 
traveling-companion,  who  happened  to  be  a  priest  of  the  Greek  Church. 
Neither  knew  a  word  of  the  mother-tongue  of  the  other,  but  both  were 
familiar  with  the  Latin  (although  their  pronunciation  and  accentuation  were 
somewhat  different),  and  thus  they  conversed  for  hours  in  a  language  which 
had  been  dead  for  many  centuries.  With  a  universal  colloquial,  diplo- 


SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

malic,  or  commercial  language  (it  matters  not  what  it  may  be  termed)  once 
established,  any  person,  whether  thoroughly  educated  or  not,  may  converse 
fluently  with  the  natives  of  all  countries  through  which  he  may  travel ;  and 
there  will  never  be  any  occasion  for  learning  half  a  dozen  languages,  as 
some  have  found  it  necessary  to  do,  in  order  to  have  clear  and  satisfactory 
intercourse  with  the  literary,  scientific,  or  commercial  world. 

With  reference  to  the  subject  of  phonetics,  I  quote  from 
an  article  I  contributed  some  years  ago  to  the  California 
Teacher,  a  small  magazine  published  under  the  auspices  of  the 
State  School  Department : 

I  advocate  a  complete  revolution  in  Orthography,  looking  to  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  system  of  spelling  at  least  approaching  the  phonetic.  A  literary 
convention  representing  all  the  people  who  speak  the  English  language  would 
be  a  means  by  which  much  might  be  speedily  accomplished  in  the  way  of 
making  important  and  much-needed  improvements  in  our  language.  Let 
our  present  elaborate  dictionaries  be  taken  as  a  mere  foundation  for  a  new 
and  grander  orthographic  structure.  Let  a  system  be  adopted,  perfect  in 
its  simplicity,  and  let  every  silent  letter  be  expelled  from  our  vocabulary. 
There  are  thousands  of  words  in  the  English  language  which?  as  rney  are 
now  spelled,  contain  from  one  to  half  a  dozen  superfluous  letters  that  are 
worse  than  useless,  because  they  are  only  calculated  to  puzzle  and  confound 
the  pupil.  I  will  cite  a  few  examples,  writing  the  same  words  opposite,  in 
the  new  form  I  propose  to  give  them : 

Yacht.  Yot. 
Though.                                                 '        Tho. 

Through.  Thru. 

Tough.  Tuf. 

Freight.  Frat. 

Wright.  Kit. 

Phthisic.  Tizik. 

The  present  orthography  of  the  last-named  word  is  little,  less  than 
ludicrous.  It  has  been  subjected  to  ridicule  by  every  school-boy,  although 
the  object  itself,  aside  from  its  clumsy  orthographic  dress,  is  entitled  to  great 
respect. 


OUR   ORTHOGRAPHY.  IQI 

It  is  related  of  a  well-known  member  of  Congress,  not  particularly  noted 
for  his  research  in  literature,  that  he  entered  a  book-store  in  Pittsburg,  Pa., 
one  day,  and  asked  for  a  dictionary. 

"  Are  all  the  words  in  this  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  clerk,  "all  that  are  in  common  use," 

The  purchase  was  made,  but  on  the  next  day  our  Congressional  friend 
came  stalking  into  the  store,  with  the  valuable  collection  of  words  under  his 
arm. 

"  I  thought  you  told  me  I  could  find  any  word  in  this,"  he  said  to  the 
clerk,  laying  the  book  upon  the  counter. 

"  So  you  can,"  was  the  reply. 

"Where's  'physician'?"  asked  the  statesman,  with  an  air  of  confident 
triumph. 

The  clerk  opened  the  dictionary,  traced  out  the  desired  word,  and  pointed 
to  it  with  an  emphatic  — 

"There!" 

The  public  man  gazed  upon  the  word,  and,  while  a  whole  volume  of  new 
light  broke  out  upon  his  face,  exclaimed : 

«  O  —  that 's  it  ?  —  I  thought  you  spelt  it  with  an  F." 

Very  natural,  though,  was  it  not  ? 

When  I  suggest  that  our  orthography  be  so  simplified  that  we  shall  write 
"  tho,"  instead  of  "though;"  "kof,"  instead  of  "  cough ;"  "  enuf,"  instead 
of  "enough;"  "  sla,"  instead  of  "sleigh;"  etc.,  I  know  that  the  reader 
will  exclaim:  "O,  that  would  look  so  odd!  We  never  could  reconcile 
ourselves  to  it !  " 

Now,  would  not  English  scholars  have  uttered  the  same  exclamation  two 
hundred  years  ago,  had  any  one  then  proposed  to  write  the  language  as  we 
write  it  now  ?  Here,  for  example,  is  a  specimen  of  the  English  language 
two  centuries  ago,  taken  from  an  account  of  an  earthquake  in  New  Eng 
land,  as  given  in  "  Bradford's  History :  " 

"  This  yeare  (1638)  about  ye  I  or  2  of  June,  was  a  great  &  fearfull  earth 
quake  ;  it  was  in  this  place  hearde  before  it  was  felte.  It  came  with  a 
rumbling  noyse,  or  low  murmure,  like  unto  remoate  thunder;  it  came  from 
ye  norward  and  pased  southwarde." 

Does  not  this  look  very  droll  to  us  ?  Yes.  Would  not  our  present  or 
thography  of  these  words  have  looked  just  as  droll  to  the  people  of  those 
days  ?  Yes.  If  we  could  see  a  specimen  of  the  improved  English  l;>a- 
guage  of  a  century  or  two  hence,  with  its  phonetic  spelling,  would  it  not 


IQ2  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

look  as  droll  to  us  as  ours  would  have  seemed  to  our  ancestors  ?  Yes, 
After  the  improvements  of  a  century  or  two,  will  not  the  words  and  sen 
tences  which  we  now  regard  as  quite  artistic  appear  as  odd  as  those  of  our 
ancestors  now  appear  to  us  ?  Yes.  Then  do  not  be  unnerved  or  disarmed 
by  that  terrible  (?)  exclamation,  "  O,  how  it  would  look!"  Might  as 
well  consult  Mrs.  Grundy  at  once.  Let  us  move  in  this  matter,  —  do  the 
work  that  must  and  will  be  done  within  a  century,  —  the  work  of  simpli 
fying  our  orthography,  and  rooting  out  its  many  incongruities  and  its  many 
superfluities. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

A  BAD  EDITOR. 

TO  conduct  a  weekly  paper  properly  involves  much  labor, 
yet  this  labor,  compared  with  the  work  -on  a  daily,  is  a 
mere  round  of  fun  and  enjoyment.  The  editor  of  the  weekly 
paper  need  not  hurry  to  his  office  in  the  morning,  nor  need  he 
remain  late  in  the  evening.  He  can  work  with  far  more  delib 
eration,  and  his  work  is  (or  ought  to  be)  much  more  studied  and 
elaborate.  But  he  finds  no  small  amount  of  labor  to  do  every 
day,  and  should  he  absent  himself  from  his  duties  one  day  in 
the  week,  he  must  toil  perceptibly  and  materially  harder  during 
the  remainder  of  the  week  to  make  up  for  it.  He  can  "arrange ' ' 
it  so  as  to  take  a  day  off  occasionally,  without  employing  a  sub 
stitute  ;  an  editor  on  a  daily  cannot.  The  latter  has  a  day's 
work  to  do  every  day,  and  one  hour's  absence  during  the  usual 
periods  for  working  would  often  be  a  very  serious  loss.  Alto 
gether,  there  is  not  a  prettier  business  in  the  world,  accord 
ing  to  my  way  of  thinking,  than  conducting  a  respectable,  well- 
established,  paying  weekly  newspaper,  with  everything  working 
smoothly.  There  is  labor  in  it,  I  know,  but  it  is  just  enough 


A  BAD   EDITOR.  193 

to  be  healthy,  to  keep  the  mind  cheerful,  as  employment  always 
does,  without  merging  into  the  drudgery,  the  heavy,  wearying, 
exhausting  toil,  that  presses  like  a  great  weight  upon  the  brain 
of  the  daily  editor. 

During  about  three  years  I  (together  with  a  man  named 
Cranks)  published  a  large  weekly  paper  in  San  Francisco,  which 
I  shall  here  style  the  Enunciator.  It  was  devoted  to  news  and 
literature,  with  a  preponderance  in  favor  of  the  latter;  and 
gave  much  editorial  attention  to  passing  events,  the  stage,  art 
and  music.  I  am  pretty  sure  I  did  all  I  could  to  make  it  an 
engine  for  the  advancement  of  the  public  good,  as  well  as  my 
own,  and  there  was  a  time  when  it  was  a  fabric  whose  founda 
tion  walls  were  deeply  rooted.  But  Cranks  !  He  was  an  extra 
ordinary  man,  indeed.  I  must  say  much  of  him,  because  he  was 
such  an  odd  character.  I  never  saw  a  man  like  him ;  I  never 
will ;  for  there  is  no  other  like  him  in  this  world.  There  never 
was,  there  never  will  be  another  Cranks.  He  belonged  to  no 
distinctive  class  of  men,  and  it  would  be  presumptuous  even 
to  describe  him  as  what  naturalists  would  term  a  "generaliza 
tion."  He  was  a  living  refutation  of  the  theory  of  Darwin. 
He  stood  alone,  with  no  match  or  like.  He  was  Cranks  — 
simply  Cranks. 

He  had  lived  forty  years.  He  weighed  one  hundred  and 
ninety  pounds.  He  was  five  feet  seven  and  a  half  inches  high. 
He  was  thick;  he  was  stout;  he  was  "chuffy."  He  had  a 
round  face,  that  at  a  short  distance  might  readily  have  been 
mistaken  for  the  head  of  a  flour-barrel ;  his  cheeks  were  puffy ; 
his  nose  was  short,  wide,  flattish  and  stubby;  his  chin  unduly 
depressed ;  his  teeth  as  prominent  as  his  plethoric  lips  ;  his 
mouth  extended ;  his  mustache  dark  and  heavy,  but  not  long ; 
and  his  neglected  hair  grew  only  from  the  comparatively  verti 
cal  portions  of  his  head,  and  hung  to  his  coat-collar,  for  upon 
17  N 


194  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

the  summit  of  his  head  there  was  no  hair  whatever,  although 
that  portion  of  the  cranium,  as  has  been  aptly  observed  in  a 
popular  song,  is  highly  appropriate  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
capillary  integument.  This  defect,  however,  was  only  percep 
tible  when  Cranks' s  hat  was  off;  therefore  it  was  rarely  seen  at 
all.  A  few  of  his  most  intimate  acquaintances  —  not  friends — 
knew  it ;  the  world  knew  it  not.  Yet  let  me  not  be  understood 
to  insinuate  that  bald  heads  are  a  reproach.  On  the  contrary, 
every  time  I  see  a  bald  head  I  think  that  if  it  were  mine  I 
would  not  part  with  it  for  any  consideration. 

Cranks  had  a  forehead.  It  was  situated  just  over  his 
round  gray  eyes  and  flattened  nose,  and  extended  from  his 
right  to  his  left  temple ;  but  you  could  not  have  discovered 
where  the  forehead  ended,  on  each  side,  and  where  the  temple 
began,  because  these  portions  of  his  head  were  so  jolly  round. 
If  you  had  cut  his  head  off  and  set  it  upside-down  on  his 
shoulders — he  had  no  neck — the  corpulent  chin  would  have 
made  just  as  good  a  forehead,  and  at  a  short  distance  you  would 
not  have  known  the  difference.  He  wouldn't,  either.  Indeed, 
the  world  itself  would  not  have  been  a  loser  by  the  change.  I 
am  pained  to  state,  however,  that  this  generally  unimportant 
operation  was  never  performed  while  I  knew  him. 

Cranks  had  a  mouth  which,  although  of  immense  size,  he 
worked  to  its  fullest  capacity  at  meal-times,  for  he  eat  much 
victuals ;  and  between  meals  that  mouth  was  ever  engaged  in 
" bulling"  the  tobacco  market.  Nevertheless,  he  was  a  "bear" 
himself,  and  he  growled  like  that  horrible  wild  beast  whenever 
spoken  to — especially  when  writing.  Yet  he  was  no  fluent 
writer,  and  he  labored  over  the  work  like  a  man  trying  to  roll 
a  hogshead  of  molasses  up  a  perpendicular  wall.  He  would  sit 
down  and  smoke  and  "chaw"  tobacco,  and  scratch  paper  with 
his  pen,  and  grunt  and  growl  one  hour  and  twenty  minutes,  and 


A   BAD  EDITOR.  19$ 

the  result  would  be  three,  four  or  five  little  pages  of  manuscript. 
Then  he  would  stop  and  say  he  was  "gone  in"  with  work,  and 
would  sit  and  smoke. 

Cranks  had  an  abstracted  air,  like  one  who  does  not  belong 
to  this  world.  I  don't  believe  he  did.  To  speak  to  him  and  get 
an  immediate  answer,  was  as  rare  as  the  Transit  of  Venus ;  to 
get  a  pleasant  answer,  as  rare  as  steamships  in  north  latitude 
90°.  He  never  approached  anything  like  an  attitude  of  gentle 
ness,  except  shortly  after  having  seen  a  funeral  procession  in 
the  street,  for  the  fear  of  Death  was  ever  before  his  eyes.  The 
sight  of  a  harmless  hearse  or  useful  coffin  sent  a  thrill  of  horror 
through  him.  I  never  saw  a  man  who  so  much  dreaded  Death. 
He  was  continually  thinking  about  Death,  talking  about  it  and 
dreading  it.  It  was  part  of  his  very  nature  to  fear  Death.  He 
did  n't  mind  living  so  much,  but  he  did  hate  the  idea  of  dying 
— "of  falling  into  naught,  of  being  dead."  One  day,  shortly 
after  he  had  seen  an  undertaker's  wagon  driving  along  the  street, 
I  really  pitied  him,  and,  ignoring  his  graver  faults,  tried  to 
comfort  him.  To  that  end  I  repeated  to  him  these  beautiful 
lines  by  T.  W.  Parsons : 

O,  but  death  is  bliss ! 
I  feel  as  certain,  looking  on  the  face 

Of  a  dead  sister,  smiling  from  her  shroud, 
That  our  sweet  angel  hath  but  changed  her  place, 

And  passed  to  peace,  as  when,  amid  the  crowd 
Of  the  mad  city,  I  feel  sure  of  rest 
Beyond  the  hills  —  a  few  hours  further  west. 

But  Cranks  was  posted  on  Death,  and  opening  a  well-marked 
copy  of  Shakespeare  he  pointed  with  a  shudder  to  this  thrilling 
passage  in  ' '  Measure  for  Measure  : ' ' 

Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot ; 


ig  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice ; 
To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendent  world ;  or  to  be  worse  than  worst 
Of  those,  that  lawless  and  incertain  thoughts 
Imagine  howling  ! — 't  is  too  horrible  ! 
The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life 
That  age,  ache,  penury  and  imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a  paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death  ! 

Indeed,  his  fear  of  Death  was  puerile  and  cowardly ;  yet 
while  he  dreaded  both  Death  and  that  — 

Something  after  death, 

That  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveler  returns, 

he  was  not  a  holy  man.  He  was  disingenuous,  spiteful,  envious, 
disagreeable,  malicious,  "with  more  offenses  at  (his)  beck  than 
(he  had)  thoughts  to  put  them  in,  imagination  to  give  them 
shape,  or  time  to  act  them  in." 

Cranks  hated  me ;  for  what  reason  I  know  not,  but  I  suppose 
it  was  because  I  was  his  partner.  Certainly,  it  could  have  been 
for  no  more  heinous  offense  —  and  perhaps,  after  all,  that  blun 
der  of  mine  was  very  reprehensible.  Yes,  Cranks  hated  me, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  would  have  been  glad  at  any  moment  dur 
ing  our  acquaintance  to  see  me  killed  —  but  for  the  fact  that  to 
witness  such  a  tragedy  he  would  necessarily  have  had  to  stand 
in  the  awful  presence  of  Death.  Cranks  hated  me ;  and  if  I 
entered  the  office  finding  him  there,  or  if  he  came  in  finding 
me  there,  and  I  greeted  him  with  a  cheerful  "good-morning," 


A   BAD   EDITOR.  197 

he  only  answered  me  with  a  churlish  grunt,  if  indeed  he  an 
swered  at  all,  or  simply  looked  "  wicked  "  at  me.  This  remark 
able  man  seemed  to  regard  it  as  one  of  the  first  rules  of  copart 
nership,  and  as  entirely  essential  to  the  end  aimed  at  by.  the 
formation  of  such  copartnership, —  whatever  may  have  been  his 
ideas  of  what  that  end  ought  to  be, —  that  nothing  like  har 
mony  between  partners  should  be  for  a  moment  encouraged. 
Certainly  his  actions  indicated  that  he  entertained  such  views. 

Many  of  the  queer  things  he  did  during  the  three  years  I  was 
associated  with  him  seem  almost  incredible  —  certainly  almost 
irreconcilable  with  the  proposition  that  he  was  a  sane  man. 
For  example,  he  would  hide  my  pens,  paste-pots,  blotters,  even 
my  scissors, —  which  was  little  short  of  a  crime! — or  would 
throw  them  away  or  destroy  them,  merely  that  he  might  have 
an  opportunity,  when  I  began  to  look  for  them,  to  say  with  a 
very  sneering  manner  that  "some  people  never  knew  where  to 
find  anything,"  had  no  sense  of  system  or  order;  he  would 
slyly  tell  friends  who  called  to  see  me  that  I  was  out,  when  he 
knew  I  was  in  the  composing-room,  and  so  send  them  away 
without  seeing  me ;  he  would  go  out  of  his  way  to  close  a  win 
dow  by  my  table  that  I  had  opened  to  let  in  a  little  fresh  air, 
or  to  open  one  I  had  closed  when  it  grew  a  little  too  cool ;  he 
would  contrive  typographic  errors,  not  only  to  annoy  me,  but 
to  blame  me  with  them  when  he  had  actually  manufactured 
them,  and  destroy  the  proofs  I  had  read  in  order  that  no  refer 
ence  could  be  made  to  them  to  show  where  the  fault  was,  or 
was  not ;  he  surreptitiously  inserted  in  the  paper  scurrilous  arti 
cles  alluding  distantly  to  prominent  gentlemen  whom  he  knew 
to  be  my  personal  friends,  and  would  pretend  that  they  were 
communications ;  and  he  annoyed  me  in  a  variety  of  ways  that 
were  as  childish  on  his  part  as  they  were  harassing  to  me.  All 
this,  and  much  more,  I  patiently  endured  nearly  three  years 
17* 


198  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

before  I  yielded  to  the  impulse  to  "  give  him  a  terrible  beating," 
which  course  finally  became  unavoidable.  After  this  scene, 
which  occurred  in  the  office,  and  which  I  take  no  pleasure  in 
recalling,  he  fled  from  the  establishment,  and  did  not  return  for 
a  period  of  three  days,  at  the  end  of  which  time  I  suppose  he 
concluded  T  had  grown  sufficiently  calm  not  to  make  him  a 
subject  of  Death. 

Probably  the  worst  feature  of  this  singular  man's  disposition 
—  from  a  business  point  of  view  —  was  his  prompt  and  even 
violent  opposition  to  every  project  not  conceived  by  himself. 
Should  I  make  any  proposition  for  the  advancement  of  our 
common  interests,  he  would  oppose  it,  and  even  ridicule  it, 
with  offensive  language.  For  example,  I  would  say : 

"  Mr.  Cranks,  how  would  it  do  to  run  another  column  of 
'  ads. '  on  the  first  page,  to  relieve  the  third  ?  ' ' 

"A  man  must  be  a  fool  who  has  no  better  taste  than  that," 
would  be  his  courteous  reply. 

On  another  occasion,  I  would  humbly  say : 

"Mr.  Cranks,  in  view  of  the  state  of  our  fonts,  how  would 
it  do  to  set  some  of  our  extracts  and  special  notices  in  minion, 
instead  of  nonpareil !" 

"Well" — with  a  sneer — "any  school-boy  ought  to  have 
more  sense  than  that." 

A  more  important  matter  would  arise,  and  I  would  say : 

"  Mr.  Cranks,  I  have  discovered  that  James  X.  Smith  (a  man 
employed  in  our  business  department,  for  example)  is  acting 
dishonestly  with  us.  I  think  we  had  better  discharge  him  and 
get  some  one  else." 

"  O,  I  guess  you  only  imagine  it,"  Cranks  would  reply. 
"Even  if  he  does  knock  down,  we  might  get  one  who  would 
be  no  better,  or  who  would  even  be  worse.  I  hate  to  make 
changes.  Better  hold  on  to  Smith  awhile." 


A   BAD  EDITOR,  1 99 

This,  not  because  he  loved  Smith,  but  because  he  haled  me; 
and  as  we  were  equal  partners  no  important  step  could  be  taken 
in  any  of  our  departments  without  the  consent  of  both.  This 
continual  conflict  might  have  been  avoided  by  dividing  the 
departments,  and  allowing  each  one  to  run  one  or  more  to  suit 
himself;  why  was  n't  this  done?  O,  I  did  propose  it  once,  but 
of  course,  as  a  proposition  coming  from  me,  Cranks  repelled  it 
with  bitterness  and  wrath. 

"  Was  this  man  insane?  "  will  be  asked. 

No,  I  am  sure  he  was  not ;  yet  I  will  try  to  be  charitable 
enough  —  while  it  is  a  stupendous  task  —  to  say  that  perhaps  he 
could  not  help  it.  He  was  one  of  those  churlish  men  who  can 
never  be  happy  except  when  everybody  around  them  is  miser 
able  ;  and  such  men  usually  have  within  them  the  qualities  nec 
essary  to  make  people  around  them  miserable.  "The  writer 
of  this  has  not  seen  through  the  thing  clearly,"  some  people 
will  say  who  know  something  of  business  copartnerships.  "  The 
case  is  plain  enough.  Cranks  was  trying  to  freeze  him  out." 

No,  he  wasn't.     I  once  offered  to  buy  him  out.     His  reply: 

"There  is  no  amount  of  money  that  would  buy  my  half  of 
the  Enunciator" 

"I  would  like  to  dissolve  this  business  relation  by  some 
means,"  I  said.  "  What  will  you  give  me  for  my  half?  " 

His  reply : 

"I  wouldn't  give  you  four  cents, —  and,  what  's  more,  I'll 
do  all  I  can  to  prevent  your  selling  to  any  one  else." 

And  he  did.  A  gentleman  offered  me  five  thousand  dollars 
for  my  interest,  but  Cranks  promptly  told  him  he  didn't  want 
him  for  a  partner;  and 'so,  of  course,  he  didn't  buy.  He 
would  have  been  a  fool  if  he  had,  under  such  discouraging 
circumstances. 

Cranks' s  extraordinary  deportment  paralyzed  the  growth  of 


20O  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

the  Enunciator,  as  might  well  have  been  expected,  and  ulti 
mately  brought  upon  it  and  him  and  me  financial  ruin.  And 
I  must  say  that  I  was  never  so  happy  in  my  life  as  when  the 
voice  of  the  Enunciator — in  which  I  had  often  felt  much 
pride  —  was  hushed  forever,  and  I  walked  forth  into  the  world 
again,  penniless,  but  free  from  Cranks,  that  incubus  that  for 
three  years  had  been  pressing  me  down  ! 

I  have  thus  briefly  described  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  I  ever  met  —  not  because  my  private  affairs  are  likely  to 
be  of  the  slightest  interest  to  the  general  public,  but  because 
he  was  a  "  character  "  so  entirely  singular,  and  one  that  would 
indeed  make  a  study.  I  have  not  exaggerated  in  this  outline 
of  the  man ;  indeed  my  once  harsh  feelings  toward  him  have 
been  softened  by  a  lapse  of  years,  so  that  I  have,  comparatively 
speaking,  rather  praised  him  than  otherwise ;  yet  had  I  read  in 
fiction  a  description  of  exactly  such  a  character  as  Cranks, 
before  I  saw  him,  I  should  have  regarded  it  as  a  piece  of  the 
wildest  caricaturing.  Entirely  blind  to  his  own  interests ;  pre 
ferring  discord  and  consequent  ruin  to  harmony  and  success ; 
a  puerile  coward,  dreading  Death,  yet  daring  to  domineer  in  a 
manner  mortally  offensive ;  hating  a  convivial  word  in  the  sun 
shine  of  noon,  yet  nightly  indulging  in  strange  orgies ;  he  was  to 
me  a  problem  and  a  puzzle,  and  such  will  remain  so  long  as  I  live. 

Cranks  wrote  verses.  I  did,  too.  But  the  trouble  was,  that 
anything  written  by  myself  was  always  ridiculed  by  him. 
However  "  trashy  "  my  productions  were, —  and  some  of  them, 
I  believe,  were  considerably  so,  —  I  knew  that  his  adverse,  not 
to  say  insolent,  criticisms  were  only  prompted  by  his  cynical 
disposition,  without  reference  to  their  merits  or  demerits;  and 
this  led  me  to  perpetrate  a  neat  little  practical  joke  on  him, 
which,  however,  had  a  denouement  altogether  unanticipated  by 
me.  One  day,  after  he  had  impressed  it  upon  me  in  unusually 


A   BAD  EDITOR.  2OI 

coarse  terms  that  I  was  "no  poet,"  —  and  he  was  certainly 
correct  there,  for  writing  verses,  even  though  they  be  "  clever," 
is  not  writing  poetry, —  I  got  into  a  proper  frame  of  mind  for 
writing  a  short  satire  in  rhyme,  and  its  title  was,  "The  Churl." 
"And  thus  awhile  the  fit  did  work  on  me,"  but  I  did  not  hand 
the  "poem"  in  to  the  foreman  of  the  Enunciator.  I  was 
conscious  of  a  device  of  just  twice  the  commercial  value  of  that. 
I  put  it  in  my  pocket,  and  that  evening  called  on  a  female 
friend,  of  much  intelligence,  to  whom  I  confided  my  plans.  I 
then  requested  her  to  copy  my  verses,  which  she  kindly  did,  in 
her  own  neat  feminine  hand ;  and  next  I  dictated,  and  she 
wrote,  the  following  note : 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  14,  18 — . 
MR.  CRANKS  : 

DEAR  SIR  : — I  frequently  write  verses  for  pastime,  but  have  often  declared 
that  I  would  never  have  any  of  my  effusions  published.  Nevertheless,  I 
herewith  inclose  my  latest  production,  which  I  am  vain  enough  to  think 
might  be  worthy  of  seeing  the  light.  If  you  agree  with  me,  you  may  pub 
lish  it  in  the  Enunciator,  of  which  I  am  a  regular  reader;  but  please 
attach  no  name  to  it,  as  I  do  not  wish  my  friends  to  know  that  it  is  mine, 
and  that  I  have  thus  broken  my  vow  not  to  do  what  they  have  often  im 
portuned  me  to  do  —  namely,  "appear  in  print." 

Respectfully  yours, 

Miss  TREE. 

The  note  and  the  "  poem  "  were  inclosed  in  a  large  envelope, 
addressed  in  the  same  feminine  hand  to  Mr.  Cranks,  and 
dropped  into  the  Post-office.  On  the  second  morning  after 
ward,  Cranks  and  I  being  alone  in  the  editorial  room  of  the 
Enunciator ;  he  spoke  to  me  almost  pleasantly,  which  of  course 
astonished  me  very  much.  In  fact,  I  began  to  fear  that  he  was 
losing  his  mind.  Addressing  me  familiarly  by  my  last  name, 
without  the  cold  form  of  "  Mr.,"  he  said  : 

"  You  did  n't  drop  round  last  night  ?  " 

"No,"  I  replied ;  "  I  went  to  the  California  Theater.  Were 
you  here  ? ' ' 


202  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

"Yes,  an  hour  or  so/'  he  replied,  carelessly.  "Being  here 
alone,  with  everything  quiet  around  me,  an  idea  struck  me,  and 
I  sat  down  and  wrote  a  little  poem.  I  never  wrote  with  such 
ease  in  my  life.  In  fact,  the  poem  seemed  to  flow  out  of  its 
own  accord.  Ah,  it 's  in  me;  there 's  no  use  in  talking. 
That,  now,  is  a  poem,"  and  he  held  up  several  sheets  of  manu 
script,  shaking  them  triumphantly.  "Ah,"  he  continued, 
rather  "  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,"  which  was  of  course  a 
very  abnormal  condition  for  him  to  get  himself  worked  into, 
"  if  you  could  only  write  like  that ! ' ' 

Then  he  handed  me  his  manuscript  that  I  might  read  it,  and 
so  learn  what  real  poetry  was.  I  knew  that  he  had  once  or 
twice  written  some  very  clever  verses,  and  I  prepared  myself  to 
give  his  latest  effort  at  least  all  the  praise  it  should,  in  my  judg 
ment,  merit.  Imagine,  then,  my  astonishment, —  not  to  say 
disgust  at  his  mendacity, —  when  I  glanced  at  the  first  page  and 
found  it  to  be  my  own  poem,  "The  Churl."  Impressed  with 
its  merits, —  shall  I  say  ?  —  and  little  suspecting  its  source,  he 
had  copied  it  in  order  to  show  it  to  me  in  his  own  handwriting 
and  make  me  believe  he  had  written  it  himself.  If  he  had 
watched  me  narrowly,  he  must  have  seen  me  start  when  I  looked 
at  the  title ;  but,  probably  fearing  that  I  might  observe  a  sig 
nificant  expression,  that  of  conscious  deceit,  in  his  own  face, 
he  turned  away,  ostensibly  to  light  his  pipe.  Quickly  regaining 
my  composure,  I  deliberately  read  the  poem  to  the  end,  dis 
covering  that  it  was  copied  word  for  word,  and  then  pronounced 
it  very  fine  indeed,  remarking  to  Cranks  that  I  thought  he  had 
never  written  so  good  a  thing  before.  I  don't  think  yet  that  I 
uttered  a  falsehood  in  saying  so. 

"The  Churl"  was  promptly  published  in  the  Enundator, 
and  was  copied  by  a  few  exchanges  that  happened  to  need  a 
poem  very  badly.  I  intended  to  leave  Cranks  "alone  in  his 


A   BAD   EDITOR.  2O3 

glory,"  thinking  that,  bad  as  he  was,  it  would  be  next  to  cruel 
to  inform  him  that  I  was  cognizant  of  his  deception ;  but  he 
referred  to  "his  poem"  so  frequently,  and  even  compared  it 
with  some  which  I  was  known  to  have  written,  so  unfavorably  to 
the  latter,  that  I  began  to  see  that  it  would  be  impossible  per 
manently  to  hold  my  peace.  Whenever  he  took  up  an  exchange 
and  found  his  (?)  poem  in  it,  he  would  modestly  (?)  say : 

"Ah,  here's  <  The  Churl'  again!  It's  going  the  rounds. 
I  knew  it  would  when  I  wrote  it." 

"  Cranks,"  said  I,  turning  from  my  writing-desk  and  gazing 
calmly  upon  that  round  face  of  his,  "  did  it  ever  occur  to  you 
that  there  might  possibly  be  some  mystery  about  Miss  Tree  ? ' ' 

He  was  struck  dumb. 

"  Cranks,"  I  continued,  "  it  just  happens  that  /  wrote  '  The 
Churl,'  and  a  lady  friend  copied  it  for  me  and  also,  at  my  dic 
tation,  wrote  that  note  signed  *  Miss  Tree. '  I  took  that  course 
in  order  that  you  might  criticise  it  without  knowing  that  it  was 
mine,  and  so  pass  an  impartial  judgment  upon  it.  But  I  never 
once  expected  that  you  would  so  ignore  the  beauties  of  entire 
originality  as  to  pass  it  off  for  your  own." 

He  was  almost  paralyzed  with  chagrin  and  mortification  ; 
for,  debasing  as  it  is  to  tell  a  lie,  it  is  doubly  so  to  be  caught  in 
it.  His  cold  gray  eyes  opened  wide,  then  nearly  closed ;  his 
face  grew  red  all  over,  then  turned  pale,  with  a  slightly  greenish 
tinge ;  and  his  whole  countenance  was  one  great  round  picture 
of  crouching  and  cowering  malevolence.  He  opened  his 
mouth  as  if  to  speak ;  but  changed  his  mind,  turned  away  with 
a  mere  grunt  and  a  half-snappish  air,  bent  over  his  table  and 
pretended  to  write.  He  did  n't  speak  to  me  again  for  two  or 
three  days,  or  look  straight  into  my  face  for  as  many  weeks ; 
and  no  reference  was  ever  again  made  to  the  disagreeable 
matter  either  by  myself  or  my  wonderful  partner. 


2O4  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   XXIV. 

THE   DENUNCIATOR." 

I  HAVE  some  pleasant  memories  of  San  Francisco,  if  it 
was  the  scene  of  bitter  trials  and  "hard  luck."  Some 
of  the  best  friends  of  my  whole  life  were  found  there ;  and 
several  faces  in  the  "Bay  City"  have  fixed  themselves  upon 
my  heart — enduring  rays  of  sunshine.  The  very  thought  of 
them  is  sufficient  to  cheer  me  a  little  when  "  things  go  wrong," 
and  I  am  not  in  a  buoyant  mood.  I  often,  too,  recall  the  city 
and  its  surroundings,  which  are  before  me  yet  like  a  beautiful 
picture.  I  think  of  the  cooling  summer  winds  that  sweep  in 
from  the  Pacific,  just  without  the  Gate ;  of  the  sweet  air  and 
spring-like  skies  that  alternate  with  the  innocent  showers  of  the 
"  rainy  season  "  —  the  time  of  our  freezing  winters  in  the  same 
latitude  of  the  Atlantic  slope  and  the  Mississippi  Valley;  of 
the  beautiful  harbor,  dotted  with  green  islands  and  fringed  with 
white  sails;  of  Suncelito,  blooming  with  strange  wild  flowers 
in  December ;  of  Yerba  Bueno ;  of  Alcatraz,  standing  up  like 
a  little  Gibraltar  out  of  the  inland  sea ;  of  the  serene  little  city 
of  Oakland,  daily  visible  beyond  the  bay,  with  her  thousand 
of  spreading  trees,  her  sweet  gardens  of  flowers  and  vines,  her 
many  lovely  homes ;  of  the  ships  gliding  in  and  out  through 
the  Golden  Gate  —  the  great  black  steamers  floating  up  to  the 
wharf,  with  the  news  from  the  Orient  and  a  thousand  yellow 
Chinese ;  of  Telegraph  Hill,  to  whose  summit  I  have  often 
climbed  and  looked  down  upon  the  face  of  the  broad  harbor, 
thinking  of  the  bright  future  of  San  Francisco,  and  prophesy 
ing  how  mighty  her  commerce  must  sooner  or  later  be ;  of  the 
thronged  streets  of  the  Golden  City,  often  in  other  days  the 


THE  DENUNCIATORS  2O$ 

scene  of  violence  and  open  murder,  but  now  crowded  with  busy 
people  who  swell  the  wealth  of  the  State ;  of  the  Twin  Peaks, 
over  toward  the  south,  that  rise  up  and  look  down  upon  the  city 
and  bay  from  a  height  of  six  hundred  feet ;  of  the  smooth  road 
to  the  Cliff  House,  beaten  by  the  thundering  hoofs  of  fleet 
horses,  followed  by  flying  wheels;  of  "Seal  Rock,"  standing 
up  out  of  the  water,  barely  away  from  the  shore,  that  great 
mass  of  granite  upon  which  the  slimy  seals  glide  up  to  bask  in 
the  sunshine  and  all  day  long  utter  their  mournful  howls ;  of  the 
smooth  beach,  beaten  by  ceaseless  breakers  that,  with  fringes  of 
foam,  roll  in  ever  and  ever  from  the  wide,  wide  sea ;  —  think 
of  these  with  that  fondness  and  longing  that  nearly  every 
one  feels  for  our  Pacific  shores  who  has  lived  upon  and  left 
them. 

That  Enunciator  /  I  worked  untiringly  to  build  it  up,  to 
make  it  a  power  in  the  land ;  and  for  awhile,  notwithstanding 
the  difficulties  that  environed  me,  had  a  reasonable  hope  of 
ultimate  success.  But  the  millstone  —  Cranks  —  was  tied 
about  the  neck  of  our  journal,  with  a  knot  of  more  than  Gordian 
intricacy,  and  the  end  was  inevitable. 

Yet  Cranks  was  not  the  only  adverse  element  in  and  about 
the  office  of  the  Enunciator.  The  money  receipts  of  a  paper 
are  its  food  and  fuel,  and  it  is  all-important  that  its  financial 
affairs  should  be  carefully  and  correctly  attended  to.  A  portion 
of  our  business,  including  the  collecting,  was  intrusted  to 
another  eccentric  character,  named  Nathaniel  Bumps,  to  whom 
we  paid  forty  dollars  a  week  for  the  exercise  of  his  talents. 
Mr.  Bumps  was  a  clever  business  man,  portly  in  form,  shapely 
in  face  and  feature,  genial  in  disposition.  He  would  have  been 
a  tower  of  strength  in  his  department,  but  for  one  or  two  little 
shortcomings,  the  principal  of  which  was  that  he  did  a  little 
too  much  in  the  "  genial  "  line.  This  fault,  so  far  from  growing 
18 


206  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

"small  by  degrees,  and  beautifully  less,"  as  I  dared  to  hope  it 
would,  was  deep-rooted,  and  rapidly  assumed  such  healthy 
proportions  as  to  make  Mr.  Bumps  a  reproach,  rather  than  a 
credit,  to  the  Enunciator. 

Nathaniel  Bumps  drank  plain  Bourbon  whisky,  in  large 
quantities  and  at  frequent  intervals ;  and  such  was  his  memory 
of  things  many  times  viewed,  that  he  could  have  minutely 
described  the  fixtures  and  informed  an  anxious  inquirer  how 
many  glass  tumblers  there  were  in  each  and  every  drinking- 
saloon  in  San  Francisco.  To  say  that  he  could  at  short  notice 
recommend  a  friend  to  the  particular  saloons  at  which  the  best 
liquors  were  to  be  had,  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation. 

"  Is  there  any  place,"  the  friend  he  met  on  the  street  would 
ask,  looking  about  with  a  half-anxious  expression  of  countenance, 
"  any  place  around  here  where  - 

"  O,  yes!"  Nathaniel  Bumps  would  interrupt,  —  for  "his 
heart  too  truly  knew  the  sound  full  well,"  —  "  O,  yes  !  There  's 
Barry  &  Patten's,  in  Montgomery  Street,  where  you  get  mighty 
fine  whisky,  but  it 's  a  two-bit  place ;  and  there  's  Martin  & 
Morton's,  corner  of  Montgomery  and  Clay,  their  Bourbon  is 
fine,  and  only  a  bit;  and  there's  'Dave's,'  613  Sacramento 
Street  —  he  sets  out  a  stavin'  lunch,  and  has  some  fine  rye  that 
he  got  in  last  Saturday;  and  then  there's  Harris's  Sample 
Rooms,  in  California  Street,  just  below  Montgomery;  and 
there  's  the  Cosmopolitan,  good  whisky,  either  rye  or  Bourbon ; 
and  I  like  the  place  because  they  set  out  thin  glasses  !  ' ' 

One  Monday  morning  I  sent  him  to  Vallejo  (a  thriving  little 
city  across  the  bay,  northward  from  San  Francisco,  and  about 
thirty  or  forty  miles  distant)  on  business  that  ought  to  occupy 
about  a  whole  day,  but  I  did  not  expect  him  to  return  to  the 
office  before  the  following  morning.  Before  going  he  said  : 

"  Confound  the  luck  !  Last  week,  when  I  had  most  to  do  and 


THE   DENUNCIATORS  2Q? 

was  most  anxious  to  get  through  with  it,  I  met  a  party  of  fellows 
that  I  could  n't  get  away  from,  and  now  I  've  got  behindhand. 
I  must  make  up  for  it  this  week.  This  thing  of  running  around 
drinking  is  played  out.  I  'm  going  to  quit  it,  right  square ;  and, 
by  Jove,  I  '11  insult  the  first  man  that  asks  me  to  take  a  drink  !  " 

I  did  not  see  him  again  till  Saturday  morning,  when  he  came 
into  the  office  —  perfectly  sober,  it  is  true,  but  very  nervous, 
and  his  face  much  "sun-burned." 

"Ughm !  "  he  said,  rubbing  his  hands  together  uneasily,  as 
he  took  a  seat  at  his  desk  to  give  me  a  statement  of  his  business 
transactions  at  Vallejo,  —  for  I  had  the  general  care  of  the 
business  department,  while  I  at  the  same  time  did  most  of  the 
editorial  work, —  "  Ughm  !  Oo-oo-oo-oo  !  " — with  a  shudder;— 
"I  don't  feel  very  well  this  morning  —  haven't  felt  well  for 
several  days.  I  think  it  must  have  been  the  water  at  Vallejo." 

I  was  a  trifle  out  of  humor  because  he  had  remained  away  so 
long  and  neglected  his  duties  in  the  city,  but  the  implied 
proposition  of  Nathaniel  Bumps  deliberately  drinking  a  glass 
of  water  struck  me  as  being  so  exceptionally  funny  that  I  had  to 
burst  into  a  fit  of  laughter.  I  could  n't  help  it.  He  looked  up 
at  me  innocently,  smiled  a  knowing  smile,  and  went  on  with  his 
work.  [I  knew  myself  that  the  Vallejo  whisky  was  "horrible 
stuff."] 

But  for  the  characteristic  obstinacy  of  my  partner  —  Cranks 
—  who  of  course  promptly  opposed  the  proposition  when  I 
made  it,  I  think  I  should  have  removed  Mr,  Bumps  to  some 
other  sphere  of  usefulness  long  before  the  termination  of  the 
Enunciated 's  career.  Cranks  himself  fairly  hated  Bumps,  but 
would  have  suffered  anything  (with  the  exception  of  Death) 
rather  than  consent  to  his  dismissal,  such  dismissal  being  de 
sired  by  his  partner.  So,  I  had  to  bear  with  the  weaknesses 
of  Nathaniel  Bumps,  while  his  sprees  grew  more  and  more  fre- 


208  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

quent  and  extended,  and  the  finances  of  the  Enunciator  grew 
more  and  more  precarious.  I  finally  got  into  the  way  of 
enduring  all  this  with  calm  resignation,  and  ceased  to  be  sur 
prised,  or  even  annoyed,  if  I  sent  Bumps  out  on  Thursday  or 
Friday  to  begin  collecting  in  order  to  meet  the  usual  demands 
of  Saturday,  —  from  three  hundred  to  four  hundred  dollars,  — 
and  did  n't  see  him  again  before  the  middle  of  the  next  week. 
That  got  to  be  an  old  thing.  Any  person  with  a  good  general 
idea  of  conducting  a  business  of  any  kind  will  readily  perceive 
how  pernicious  such  a  state  of  things  must  have  been. 

In   the   latter  days   of  the  Enunciator,  we   had   a  general 
"streak  of  bad  luck."     In  the  language  of  Hamlet's  mother, 

One  woe  doth  tread  upon  another's  heel, 
So  fast  they  follow. 

We  had  correspondents  in  various  parts  of  the  State  who 
occasionally  sent  us  mining  or  agricultural  news,  and  now  and 
then  brief  accounts  of  anything  remarkable  —  sometimes 
amusing  —  that  might  occur  in  their  respective  localities.  On 
one  occasion  a  correspondent  at  Marysville  sent  us  an  account 
of  a  ridiculous  affair  that  occurred  there  —  and  it  was  published 
in  the  Enunciator.  Briefly,  it  was  to  the  effect  that  an  Eng 
lishman,  representing  himself  as  a  nobleman,  with  the  title  of 
Sir  William  Ward,  took  rooms  at  an  hotel  and  expressed  a 
desire  to  spend  a  few  days  in  gunning.  He  boasted  so  much, 
in  so  short  a  time,  of  his  shooting,  his  wealth,  his  ancestry, 
and  was  in  general  so  "airy,"  that  some  of  the  mischievous 
young  men  of  the  place  conspired  to  make  him  the  victim  of  a 
harmless  practical  joke.  There  was  no  such  a  thing  as  a  wild 
duck  in  the  neighborhood,  but  they  told  him  that  that  species 
of  game  abounded  in  all  directions,  and  arranged  to  guide  him 
on  the  following  day  to  a  place  where  he  might  shoot  a  bagful 


THE  DENUNCIATORS  2OQ 

or  two.  Then  they  spent  a  part  of  the  night  in  making  a  few 
wooden  ducks,  which  they  properly  painted,  ballasted  and 
placed  in  a  neighboring  pond.  Next  day  they  led  him  to  the 
spot  and  got  him  to  banging  away  at  the  wooden  images; 
although  it  was  clear  that  had  he  been  half  the  sportsman  he 
pretended  to  be,  he  must  have  detected  the  trick  at  a  glance. 
His  disgust  when  he  discovered  the  real  state  of  things,  and 
his  prompt  departure  from  Marysville,  were  humorously  de 
scribed  by  our  correspondent,  followed  by  a  statement  that 
"  Ward  "  was  discovered  to  be  an  impostor, —  no  nobleman  at 
all, —  and  when  I  handed  the  manuscript  to  our  Foreman  there 
was  certainly  no  shadow  of  a  "  monitor  "  within  me  to  whisper 
that  I  was  about  to  commit  the  "  crime  "  of  libel. 

I  should  never  have  given  the  subject  a  thought  again,  but 
for  the  fact  that  a  few  days  after  the  publication  of  the  corre 
spondence  a  respectably-dressed  Englishman,  whom  I  had 
certainly  never  seen  before,  came  into  the  office  and  called  my 
attention  to  it.  He  stated  that  his  name  was  William  Ward ; 
that  he  was  the  person  referred  to  in  the  communication  ;  that 
he  was  an  Englishman  by  birth,  but  not  a  nobleman,  and  had 
not  so  represented  himself ;  that  he  had  come  from  Australia, 
where  he  had  lived  some  years ;  that  he  had  been  in  California 
nearly  five  weeks ;  and  that  he  felt  his  reputation  so  much 
damaged  by  the  publication  of  our  Marysville  correspondence 
that  he  must,  in  justice  to  himself,  demand  a  pecuniary  satis 
faction  ;  although,  to  be  sure,  no  conceivable  amount  of  money 
could  fully  indemnify  him. 

Cranks  turned  pale. 

I  told  "Mr.  Ward"   that   I  did   not  know  him;   that   the 

article  alluded  to  was  sent  by  a  correspondent ;  that  we  had 

understood  it  to  refer  merely  to  some  one  traveling  under  a 

fictitious  name  and    title;    and   that   certainly  nothing  could 

18*  O 


2IO  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

have  been  more  distant  from  our  intentions  than  to  libel  any 
actual  living  human  being;  and,  more  for  pastime  than  any 
thing  else,  I  asked  him  to  what  extent  he  believed  his  reputation 
to  have  been  damaged  by  the  publication  of  the  correspondence 
in  the  Enunciator. 

He  thought  that  ten  thousand  dollars,  in  gold,  would  make 
it  about  right,  so  far  as  money  considerations  went. 

Although  highly  amused,  I  suggested  that  there  was  such  a 
thing  as  a  street  in  San  Francisco,  and  with  an  apprehension 
creditable  to  him,  he  took  the  hint  and  left. 

"Now,  we're  in  a  devil  of  a  scrape  !  "  said  Cranks,  who, 
feeling  that  Death  might  after  all  be  somewhat  distant,  began 
to  recover  from  his  fright,  and  at  the  same  time  to  recover  his 
normal  condition  of  ill-nature.  He  had  never  uttered  a  word 
in  the  dreadful  presence  of  "  Sir  William  Ward." 

"  It  will  amount  to  nothing,"  I  replied,  resuming  my  work. 
"A  mere  adventurer,  I  see  plainly  enough." 

On  the  following  day,  while  I  was  making  a  canvass  of 
the  drinking-saloons,  in  search  of  Nathaniel  Bumps,  whom  I 
had  not  seen  since  the  middle  of  the  previous  week,  when  I 
had  sent  him  out  to  collect  three  or  four  large  bills,  an  officer 
of  one  of  the  courts  entered  our  office  and  served  a  "  process" 
on  my  partner  as  one  of  the  defendants  in  a  civil  suit  in  which 
William  Ward  was  the  plaintiff;  which  of  course  alarmed 
Cranks  very  much,  for,  in  his  supreme  ignorance  of  the  law, 
how  was  he  to  know  but  that  Death  might  somehow  or  other 
be  mixed  up  with  the  matter? 

Yes,  (Sir)  William  Ward  had  employed  a  lawyer  of  the 
"shyster"  school  and  entered  suit  for  libel  against  the  pro 
prietors  of  the  "Enunciator"  laying  his  damages,  with  great 
accuracy,  at  ten  thousand  dollars.  This  man,  it  will  be 
remembered,  had  been  in  the  country  about  five  weeks;  yet 


THE   DENUNCIATORS  211 

the  publication  of  a  humorous  article  in  a  weekly  paper,  with  a 
circulation  of  less  than  four  thousand  copies,  had  damaged  his 
reputation  to  the  extent  of  ten  thousand  dollars  !  I  shudder  to 
think  what  "his  bill "  might  have  been  if  he  had  lived  in  the 
United  States  a  couple  of  years  or  so  at  the  time  the  "  libel  " 
was  published,  and  been  established  in  a  profitable  business  ! 
In  another  chapter  I  shall  have  something  more  to  say  of  libel- 
suits  and  libel-laws ;  but  here  is  a  simple  statement  of  a  case 
that  speaks  volumes.  Mark  the  conclusion  :  After  some  delay, 
made  necessary  by  the  usual  legal  formalities, — I  having  mean 
time  engaged  a  lawyer  to  defend  the  case  to  the  last,  giving  him 
a  retaining-fee  of  one  hundred  dollars,  —  this  (Sir)  William 
Ward  intimated  a  willingness  to  make  a  new  estimate  of  the 
value  of  his  reputation,  and  thought  he  might  take  fifty  dollars 
as  indemnity  for  the  damage  sustained,  and  "  call  it  square  !  " 

Now  the  galling  part  of  it  was,  that  during  my  absence  from 
the  office,  Cranks,  probably  thinking  that  such  a  course  might 
prevent  a  sudden  termination  of  his  life,  and  so  defer  the  ap 
proach  of  Death,  signed  an  agreement  to  pay  this  amount,  thus 
committing  the  firm  to  a  compromise  with  the  villainy  of  black 
mailing  !  In  doing  this,  he  was  guilty  of  little  less  than  a 
crime.  It  was  compounding  felony,  and  I  would  rather  have 
emptied  the  already  waning  treasury  of  the  Enunciator,  in  the 
way  of  costs,  than  to  have  seen  rascality  rewarded  with  even  the 
pitiful  sum  of  fifty  dollars.  However,  we  were  now  committed 
to  it,  and  the  money  had  to  be  paid. 

About  this  time  a  number  of  petty  annoyances  and  losses 
were  inflicted  upon  the  Enunciator,  and  it  seemed  as  if  heaven 
and  earth  were  conspiring  with  Cranks  to  "bust  it  up."  A 
printers'  strike,  taken  alone,  would  not  have  been  such  a  serious 
matter,  but  of  course  it  had  to  come  right  along  with  the  series 
of  other  perplexities.  Our  compositors  were  very  good  work- 


212  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

men,  and  good  fellows,  too;  but  they  belonged  to  the  Printers' 
Union,  and  had  to  strike  along  with  the  rest.  In  common  with 
other  publishers  and  employing  printers,  we  declined  to  yield 
to  their  demands,  and  the  result  was  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
getting  the  Enunciatorout,  and  even  then  it  involved  additional 
expense.  One  of  "the  boys,"  who  little  suspected  the  poor 
financial  condition  of  the  Enunciator,  dropped  in  to  pay  me  a 
friendly  visit  one  day,  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  his  Sunday 
suit  on,  and  said,  in  the  course  of  some  conversation  on  the 
subject : 

"We  all   hated  to  strike,  Mr.  ,  and  would  have  been 

willing  to  work  on,  so  far  as  this  office  is  concerned ;  but  we 
belong  to  the  Union,  and  of  course  could  n't  help  it." 

"  Well,  George,"  I  replied,  "you  know  very  well  that  I  have 
always  been  disposed  to  do  full  justice  to  the  compositors,  but 
I  really  do  think  the  Union  is  asking  too  much.  Have  you 
any  idea  that  your  strike  will  succeed  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  the  boys  all  think  it  will.     Don't  you  think  so?  " 

"No,  sir-ree,  George,"  I  replied,  emphatically;  "no  use 
contending  against  capital!  " 

I  put  on  a  very  grave  look  when  I  said  this,  and  George  sat 
in  thoughtful  silence,  not  suspecting  that  I  could  scarcely  re 
strain  a  burst  of  laughter  at  the  idea  of  having  classed  myself' 
with  the  capitalist,  when  there  was  not  a  printer  recently  in 
our  employ  half  so  poor  as  the  proprietors  of  the  Enunciator. 

I  think  that  one  of  the  saddest  things  in  the  experience  of 
the  printer  and  newspaper  publisher  is  the  "piing",  of  a  form. 
What  printers  call  a  "form"  is,  for  example,  the  type,  prop 
erly  set  up  and  arranged  in  final  order,  from  which  one  whole 
page  (or  it  might  be  two)  of  a  newspaper  is  to  be  printed. 
This  is  "locked  up"  —  if  I  say  "wedged,"  I  will  be  better 
understood  —  in  what  is  called  a  "chase."  The  chase  is  a 


THE  DENUNCIATORS  213 

square  iron  frame,  something  like  a  window-sash  with  all  the 
glass  and  cross-pieces  removed.  The  chase  lies  on  a  large 
table,  about  three  and  a  half  or  four  feet  high,  whose  top  is  a 
smooth  slab  of  stone  (or  iron),  called  an  imposing-stone. 
Within  this  chase  the  columns  of  type  are  placed  by  the  fore 
man,  or  assistant  foreman,  which  operation  is  styled  "making 
up."  But  the  form  does  not  quite  fill  out  the  chase,  and  in 
the  crevices  at  the  bottom  and  one  side  are  placed  what  are 
called  "side-stick  "  and  "  foot-stick,"  and  between  these  and 
the  iron  frame  of  the  chase  the  foreman,  with  his  mallet  and 
shooting-stick,  drives  square  and  slightly  tapering  sticks  of  wood 
a  couple  of  inches  in  length,  and  these  are  called  quoins.  They 
are  driven  in  tight,  causing  a  pressure  upon  the  types  from  all 
sides  calculated  to  hold  them  so  firmly  in  their  places  that  the 
whole  mass  may  be  lifted  and  carried  to  the  press,  which  is 
often  out  of,  and  whole  squares  distant  from,  the  building  in 
which  the  composing-room  is  situated. 

It  will  be  readily  understood  that  it  is  important  to  "  handle 
with  care  ' '  this  heavy  mass  of  type,  weighing,  say  two  hundred 
pounds,  for  the  form  cannot  be  so  firmly  locked  but  that  a 
sudden  shock  may  start  the  types  from  their  places  and  cause 
the  whole  mass  to  crumble  into  a  disorderly  heap.  Such  a 
calamity,  which  sometimes  occurs,  is  called  "piing  a  form," 
and  the  scattered  type  is  called  "  pi."  So  careful  was  I  to  pre 
vent  such  an  occurrence,  that  late  on  many  a  Saturday  night  I  have 
stood  by  the  hand-cart  that  waited  at  the  door,  with  a  revolver  in 
my  pocket,  to  guard  one  inside  form  that  had  been  carried  down 
and  placed  therein  to  be  conveyed  to  press,  while  the  strong 
man  made  a  second  journey  up-stairs  for  the  other.  I  thought 
this  precaution  necessary  because  reckless  revelers  were  in  the 
streets  all  night,  and  many  of  them  would  not  have  hesitated  to 
"pi "  a  form  —  not  through  ill-will  toward  the  Enunciator,  bux 


214  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

merely  "  for  fun. ' '  One  Saturday  night,  or  rather  Sunday  morn 
ing,  —  for  it  was  past  two  o'clock,  — I  had  the  good  fortune  to 
prevent  this  piece  of  innocent  sport.  A  party  of  four  or  five 
bacchanalians  came  reeling  along,  and  one  of  them  said,  "  Hello. 
Let's  upset  this  old  cart."  He  led  the  way,  and  the  others 
gathered  around  to  assist  in  his  laudable  undertaking.  I  did 
not  like,  if  I  could  help  it,  to  "commence  shootin,'  "  as  Arte- 
mus  Ward  says  in  his  account  of  desperado  life  in  Nevada,  so  I 
merely  sung  out,  with  my  hand  none  the  less  on  my  revolver  : 

"  O,  say  —  by  the  way  —  is  that  you,  Charlie  ?  " 

They  hesitated.  The  name  of  one  of  them  did  happen  to 
be  Charlie,  and  of  course,  thinking  I  must  be  some  one  he  knew 
—  I  was  standing  in  the  shadow  of  the  door-way,  and  the  night 
was  dark  —  he  replied  : 

"Yes;  is  that  you?" 

"Yes.  Don't  disturb  that  cart,  please;  there  is  something 
in  it  that  belongs  to  me." 

"  O,  all  right,"  was  the  reply;  and  as  they  walked  away  he 
added  :  "  Won't  you  go  up  to  the  corner  and  take  a  drink  ?  " 

"No,  thank  you,"  I  replied.  "I'm  waiting  here  for  a 
man . ' ' 

So,  the  whole  party  retired,  and  I  had  saved  my  form  without 
resorting  to  the  taking  of  human  life. 

But,  in  the  days  of  its  waning  fortunes,  the  Enunciator  did 
not  escape  the  disaster  of  a  "  pied  form,"  although  in  the  pride 
of  its  strength,  when  it  might  have  laughed  at  such  a  mishap,  it 
had  enjoyed  a  wonderful  immunity  therefrom.  The  paper  con 
tained  thirty-six  columns,  each  thirty  inches  in  length ;  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  piing  of  one  of  its  forms,  of  nine  columns, 
was  not  calculated  to  excite  much  mirth  on  the  part  of  those, 
editors  and  printers,  who  had  labored  so  carefully  to  get  the 
matter  up. 


THE  DENUNCIATORS  215 

It  was  one  rainy  Saturday  night  —  that  is,  Sunday  morning, 
after  two  o'clock,  when  my  weary  week's  work  was  done.  The 
strong  man  had  taken  the  first  form  (page  two,  editorial)  from 
the  imposing-stone  and  was  beginning  slowly  and  carefully  to 
descend  the  flight  of  stairs  from  the  third  floor,  on  which  our 
editorial-  and  composing-rooms  were,  and  I  was  sitting  on  a 
corner  of  my  writing-table,  on  the  eve  of  lighting  a  cigar  be 
fore  following  him  down  to  the  street  to  watch  it  while  he 
should  come  up  for  the  other  inside  form,  —  the  two  outside 
pages  having  been  already  printed,  — and  Cranks  sat  in  an  arm 
chair,  scowling  at  me  (because  I  was  his  partner)  through  a 
dense  cloud  of  smoke  which  he  drew  from  a  strong  pipe,  and  sent 
out  into  the  air ;  when  we  were  startled  by  a  thump  —  a  rum 
bling  sound  —  a  loud  crash  —  a  continuous  rattle  and  uproar, 
accompanied  by  a  perceptible  trembling  of  the  floor  and  quiver 
ing  of  the  walls. 

An  earthquake  was  of  course  the  first  thing  to  be  thought  of, 
as  we  used  to  have  one  of  more  or  less  vigor  every  week  or  two 
in  San  Francisco  and  its  vicinity ;  and  Cranks,  thinking  that 
he  might  be  in  the  immediate  presence  of  Death,  shouted,  "  O, 
Lord  !  "  dropped  his  pipe,  scattering  sparks  and  ashes  in  every 
direction,  sprang  up  and  flew  wildly  out  of  the  room.  I  ex 
pected  to  hear  him  tumbling  down  stairs,  as  I  had  heard  him 
several  times  before  when  the  building  was  "  shaken  up  "  by  a 
harmless  earthquake,  but  I  was  disappointed  this  time.  I  was 
still  waiting  for  the  brimstone  to  burn  off  the  match  with  which 
I  was  about  to  light  my  cigar,  when  he  came  back  to  the  door, 
having  merely  taken  a  few  steps  in  the  hall,  which  was  well 
lighted  with  gas,  and  said  : 

"  O  !  — just  —  come — here  !  " 

I  shall  never  forget  how  Cranks  looked  at  that  moment. 
His  thick  form  appeared  shorter  than  usual,  probably  being 


2l6  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

slightly  bent  with  fright ;  his  hat  had  fallen  off,  and  in  the  gas 
light  the  bald  top  of  his  head  glittered  and  shone  in  a  wild  fan 
tastic  way ;  what  hair  he  had  growing  around  the  sides  of  his 
head  was  all  disordered,  and  actually  stood  out  in  every  di 
rection, 

Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine ; 

and  on  his  distorted  face,  now  about  the  color  of  pure  hickory- 
ashes,  there  was  such  a  look  of  consternation  and  despair  as 
really  startled  me.  I  began  to  think  that  the  universe  had 
collapsed,  that  he  had  just  got  the  news,  and  that  we  were  on 
the  eve  of 

The  wreck  of  matter  and  the  crush  of  worlds. 

It  was  "the  wreck  of  matter"  only;  for  when  I  went  out 
into  the  hall  and  looked  down  the  stairway,  I  saw  that  the  form 
of  our  editorial  page  was  "  pied." 

"  O,  piteous  spectacle!"  The  types,  the  spaces,  the  em- 
quads,  the  two-em  quads,  the  leads,  the  rules,  the  quoins, 
the  reglets,  the  side-stick,  the  foot-stick,  the  furniture,  were 
scattered  in  awful  confusion  from  stair  to  stair,  from  the 
top  to  the  bottom  of  the  flight;  and  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs,  to  which  he  had  tumbled,  the  strong  man  was  in  the  act 
of  struggling  to  his  feet,  with  the  empty  chase  —  which  now 
looked  nearly  as  interesting  as  a  second-hand  picture- frame  with 
no  picture  in  it  —  around  his  neck,  like  a  horse's  collar,  though 
it  did  not  make  nearly  so  neat  a  fit.  There  were  horror  and 
anguish  on  the  poor  fellow's  face  as  he  looked  up  at  me  and 
said : 

"Why,  'pon  my  word!  I  —  I  —  didn't  —  mean  to  do  it! 
I  slipped!" 

Heaven  knows  that  I  did  not  suspect  him  of  having  done  it 
purposely,  and  for  the  moment  I  forgot  my  own  misfortune  in 


THE  DENUNCIATOR."  2 1/ 

pity  for  him,  especially  as  I  noticed  the  blood  trickling  from 
his  forehead,  just  over  the  right  eye,  and  I  said : 

"  O,  that's  nothing."  [Such  a  lie!]  ''Did  you  get  hurt, 
Dennis?" 

"  Nothin'  but  a  bruise  or  two,"  he  replied,  rubbing  his 
elbow,  and  nose,  and  forehead. 

"Well,  accidents  will  happen,"  I  said,  although  I  never 
before  so  sincerely  wished  they  wouldn't.  "There's  two 
bits,"  —and  I  tossed  him  a  silver  quarter, —  "go  up  to 
George's  at  the  corner,  and  get  a  drink  of  good  brandy." 

The  fact  is,  I  feared  he  might  be  injured  internally,  and,  as 
he  had  a  large  family,  I  should  have  felt  conscience-stricken  if 
he  had  died  in  my  service  at  a  time  when  I  was  unable  to  give 
his  widow  a  pension.  He  picked  up  the  bit  of  silver,  and 
started  for  that  "  corner  "  that  was  "open  all  night,"  and  when 
he  returned,  I  was  glad  to  note  that  he  looked  much  better. 
Meantime,  Cranks  and  I,  assisted  by  a  compositor  who  had  not 
yet  gone  home,  proceeded  to  gather  up  the  scattered  type,  for 
it  was  worth  a  hundred  dollars  or  so,  and  we  had  no  notion  of 
allowing  it  to  assume  the  attitude  of  rubbish. 

Yes,  it  was  sad.  Nine  columns — two  hundred  and  seventy 
inches  —  twenty-two  and  a  half  feet  of  type,  in  lines  of  two 
and  a  quarter  inches  in  measure  —  all  wrecked  —  all  our  articles 
gone  —  my  editorial  carefully  prepared  with  reference  to  statis 
tics  of  the  mining  and  agricultural  products  of  the  State  —  an 
unusually  fine  poem  —  a  pathetic  appeal  to  harsh  parents  —  a 
peculiarly  sarcastic  hit  at  some  abuses  in  the  city  govern 
ment —  all  gone,  gone,  GONE.  If  I  had  been  "given  to  the 
melting  mood,"  I  never  could  have  found  an  occasion  more 
fitting. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  We  could  not  think  of  issuing  our 
paper  with  one  page  blank.  Well,  I  went  and  woke  up  Mr. 
19 


2l8  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

P ,  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  daily  Bulletin,  and,  telling 

him  what  had  happened,  asked  him  if  he  would  be  kind  enough 
to  allow  us  to  use  one  of  the  forms  of  his  Saturday  evening 
issue  in  the  place  of  our  pied  one.  He  said  "  Certainly," 
although  he  and  I  had  given  each  other  more  than  one  "  rap  " 
in  our  respective  papers.  The  fact  is,  there  is  no  finer  sense 
of  courtesy  anywhere  than  that  existing  among  members  of  the 
newspaper  fraternity ;  and  I  believe  I  never  yet  saw  an  editor 
or  proprietor  of  a  paper  but  would  lend  matter,  his  press  and 
everything  to  his  worst  enemy  in  the  profession  in  cases  of 
terrible  exigency  like  this.  So  we  took  out  one  small  paragraph 
from  the  form  of  our  third  page,  and  inserted  a  few  lines  in 
bold  letters,  explaining  what  had  happened,  and  so  accounting 
for  the  "eccentric  appearance"  of  the  second  page  of  the 
Enundalor —  gladly  giving  credit  to  the  Bulletin  for  helping 
us  out. 

I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  in  this  volume  that  editors  are 
disposed  to  be  generous,  and  I  have  seldom  seen  any  who  were 
otherwise.  Horace  Greeley,  whom  I  so  frequently  have  occa 
sion  to  mention  in  speaking  of  editors,  was  noted  for  his 
generosity,  although  he  was  no  doubt  often  imposed  upon.  He 
says,  in  his  "Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,"  something  like 
this:  "I  have  invested  largely  in  human  nature,  and  I  lament 
my  loss  of  confidence  in  it  more  than  my  loss  of  money." 
Indeed,  it  would  be  strange  if  intellectual  men  did  not  possess 
the  highest  share  of  noble  qualities,  among  which  is  pity  for 
the  distressed,  coupled  with  an  impulse  to  aid  them.  I  hate  to 
say  that  I  ever  did  any  one  a  kindness ;  but  if  I  did,  it  was 
through  selfishness  after  all,  for,  if  one  takes  pleasure  in  doing 
an  act  of  any  kind,  I  do  not  see  that  he  is  entitled  to  a  great 
amount  of  credit  for  it.  But  it  is  to  illustrate  how  what  is 
called  generosity  is  sometimes  —  shall  I  say  often?  —  rewarded, 


THE   DENUNCIATORS  219 

that  I  introduce  the  subject  here ;  and  it  has  also  a  bearing 
upon  the  falling  fortunes  of  the  Enunciator. 

A  man  named  Jordan,  with  but  one  arm,  came  into  our  office, 
one  day,  and  Cranks,  my  evil  genius,  introduced  him  to  me  as 
an  old  newspaper-carrier.  I  asked  him  what  he  was  engaged 
at  now,  and  he  said  "  Nothing."  He  had  recently  been  en 
gaged  in  the  Post-office  as  a  letter-carrier,  but  owing  to  ill- 
health  had  been  obliged  to  give  it  up  a  few  months  previously, 
and  now  must  wait  for  his  turn  to  get  on  the  list  again.  It  was 
very  natural  for  me  to  ask  him  "how  he  was  fixed."  Could 
he  live  comfortably  awhile  without  employment  ? 

No.  He  had  very  little  money  left ;  doctors'  bills,  you  know, 
and  — 

I  thought  awhile,  then  said  : 

' '  There  is  a  carrier  on  the  Enunciator  who  owns  a  route  and 
wants  to  dispose  of  it.  He  would  sell  it  for  a  hundred  dollars 
or  so.  Probably  you  have  n't  the  means  to  buy  it  ?  " 

"  No  —  not  quarter  enough. ' ' 

"  Would  you  like  paper-carrying  again  ?  " 

"  O,  yes;  anything  for  the  sake  of  employment." 

I  liked  his  frank  manner  and  honest  appearance,  and  I  pon 
dered  a  few  seconds  and  said  to  Cranks : 

"  Suppose  we  should  buy  the  route  of  the  carrier  and  let  Mr. 
Jordan  run  it  ?  " 

To  my  astonishment,  Cranks  readily  assented  to  my  proposi 
tion,  a  thing  he  had  never  done  before. 

"  Very  well.     Will  you  take  hold  of  it,  Mr.  Jordan  ?  " 

"O,  yes!  "  he  said,  joyfully.  "But  how  about  paying  for 
my  papers  ?  ' ' 

"  That  will  be  all  right.  You  need  not  pay  us  for  any 
papers  till  the  end  of  the  first  month,  when  you  do  your  col 
lecting.  That  will  be  giving  you  a  good  chance.  We  usually 


22O  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

require  security  in  a  case  like  this,  but  I  won't  from  you,  Mr. 
Jordan.  I  think  I  know  an  honest  man  when  I  see  one." 

So,  I  bought  the  route  of  the  other  carrier,  and,  while  re 
taining  its  ownership,  gave  it  trustingly  into  the  charge  of  Jor 
dan.  He  came  and  got  his  papers  every  Sunday  morning, 
bright  and  cheerful,  and  for  weeks  nothing  happened,  except 
that  he  borrowed  ten  dollars  of  me  —  Cranks  having  assured 
me  that  he  was  perfectly  reliable.  A  month  went  by,  and  he 
did  not  pay  any  money,  or  say  anything  about  it.  Six  weeks, 
and  I  ventured  —  very  gently  —  to  ask  him,  one  day,  if  he  had 
been  collecting  yet.  No,  he  hadn't.  He  had  been  busy  can 
vassing  his  route,  and  was  going  to  add  a  couple  of  hundred 
subscribers  to  his  list.  He  would  collect  in  another  week. 
Two  or  three  weeks  went  by,  and  he  deliberately  abandoned 
his  route  and  absconded,  owing  us  three  hundred  dollars. 
Before  abandoning,  he  carefully  collected  every  cent  due  from 
subscribers  on  his  route.  I  afterward  learned  that,  instead  of 
having  left  the  Post-office  on  account  of  ill-health,  he  had  been 
discharged  therefrom  for  a  very  sufficient  reason,  and,  what  may 
seem  on  the  verge  of  the  unfathomable,  my  partner  knew  it ! 

I  have  been  "  taken  in  "  as  badly  as  that  more  than  once,  — 
although  such  experience,  I  trust,  will  never  make  me  an  aban 
doned  cynic,  —  and  another  notable  instance  occurred  while  I 
was  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  Enunciator.  I  subsequently 
wrote  an  account  of  it  (in  the  form  of  a  sketch  that  might  be 
taken  for  an  imaginary  one)  for  Saturday  Night,  — accurate  in 
every  particular,  except  in  the  matter  of  names, —  and,  with  the 
permission  of  the  proprietors  of  that  paper,  to  whom  the  sketch 
now  belongs,  I  make  it  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  next 
chapter. 


"MY  FKIEND   GEORGE:'  221 

CHAPTER   XXV. 

11  MY  FRIEXD    GEORGE." 

[From  "Saturday  Night]'  April  26,  1873,] 

IX  the  spring  of  18 — ,  I  went  to  California  by  steamer.  A  couple  of 
days  after  sailing,  when  I  had  about  recovered,  I  was  sitting  on  the 
hurricane-deck,  looking  down  into  the  blue  sea.  Another  passenger  sat  at 
my  elbow,  on  the  same  long  seat  by  the  railing,  and  he  said  to  me : 

"  I  've  been  trying  to  think  where  I  've  seen  you  ?  " 

His  own  face  was  not  unfamiliar. 

"  I  cannot  say.     Where  do  you  hail  from  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Philadelphia." 

"  I,  too,  have  resided  there  for  some  years." 

"  I  thought  so.  O,  yes ;  now  that  I  come  to  think,  I  remember  where  I 

saw  you.  If  I  mistake  not,  you  were  a  party  in  the  B libel  case.  I  was 

a  witness." 

And  he  informed  me  what  my  name  was. 

"  Correct.     Let  me  see  —  your  name  is  —  " 

«  Miller  —  George  Miller." 

I  rather  liked  him. 

He  was  five  feet  seven  inches  high,  and  weighed  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  pounds.  He  was  not  fleshy,  but  rather  muscular.  His  face,  especially, 
which  was  characterized  by  prominent  cheek-bones,  in  marked  contrast  with 
a  narrow  chin,  was  not  burdened  by  an  undue  amount  of  flesh.  He  had 
black,  curly  hair,  gray  eyes,  a  nose  prominent  at  the  bridge,  and  a  sparse 
mustache.  His  age  was  thirty.  He  was  affable. 

During  the  voyage  our  acquaintance  ripened  into  a  friendly  intimacy. 
He  was  a  good  fellow,  with  a  fair  sense  of  humor,  and  his  ways  were  frank 
and  open  —  almost  boyish.  At  Aspinwall  his  pocket  was  picked  of  three 
hundred  dollars  —  all  he  had.  But  I  assisted  him  in  various  ways  and 
made  it  as  comfortable  as  possible  for  him.  I  little  thought  then  that  I 
should  ever  find  it  come  in  my  way  to  employ  him  as  a  detective. 

George  had  left  his  wife  in  Philadelphia,  —  she  was  an  estimable  little 
Quakeress,  only  twenty,  as  I  subsequently  ascertained, —  and  was  going  to 


222  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

California  to  build  up  his  fortunes  there,  and  then  send  for  her.  He  had 
been  unfortunate  in  business.  He  possessed  more  than  ordinary  qualifi 
cations  for  a  mercantile  calling,  and  on  arriving  at  San  Francisco  he  tried 
hard  to  get  a  situation  as  book-keeper.  But  just  at  that  time  San  Francisco 
was  flooded  with  persons  seeking  employment,  and  it  was  about  as  difficult 
to  procure  a  very  desirable  and  remunerative  position  as  it  was  to  become  a 
member  of  Congress.  So,  with  willing  hands,  George  did  the  next  best 
thing — he  took  a  position  as  conductor  on  a  street-car,  and  was  thus 
employed,  by  spells,  for  a  year  or  two.  At  times,  he  even  acted  as  driver. 

I  saw  him  often,  and  occasionally  got  on  his  car,  at  his  cordial  request, 
and  took  a  ride  with  him  to  the  terminus  of  the  line  and  back.  He  was 
always  lively  and  cheerful.  I  felt  pained  when  I  looked  at  his  good-natured, 
sun-browned  face,  and  meditated  that  he  was  fitted  for  a  higher  sphere.  He 
told  me  that  he  was  laying  by  money,  and  would  send  for  his  little  wife 
some  day.  But  poor  George  had  a  weakness  —  one  that  has  afflicted  many 
an  intellectual,  high-minded,  honorable  man. 

He  drank. 

At  times  he  drank  to  excess,  to  the  end  that  his  employers'  interests  were 
prejudiced.  He  was,  therefore,  discharged  several  times;  but  recovered 
his  position  each  time,  after  an  interval,  because  he  was  a  good  fellow  — 
and  promised  to  be.  But  by-and-by  he  was  dismissed  for  good,  on  account 
of  drinking  an  unusual  quantity,  and  failed  to  get  a  place  on  the  road  again, 
either  as  conductor  or  driver.  Then  he  "straightened  up,"  and  remained 
idle  a  good  while,  but  ultimately  secured  a  position  as  driver  on  a  line  of 
horse-cars  just  established  in  the  pleasant  little  city  of  Oakland,  over  the 
bay. 

He  didn't  "drink  a  drop"  for  some  time,  and  I  entertained  pleasing 
hopes  for  his  future.  But  at  last  he  took  to  it  again,  with  unusual  avidity, 
and  lost  his  situation  in  Oakland.  He  then  returned  to  San  Francisco,  and 
sought  employment  for  months. 

Meantime  I  was  editing  a  weekly  newspaper,  in  which  I  had  purchased 
an  interest,  and  George  often  called  on  me  at  our  sanctum  —  sometimes 
perfectly  sober.  I  bestowed  frequent  little  favors,  and  exerted  myself  to 
procure  employment  for  him.  Poor  fellow,  I  did  pity  him ! 

By-and-by  I  thought  I  could  make  room  for  a  clerk  in  our  office,  and 
sought  George,  but  could  not  find  him.  A  note  addressed  to  him  and 
dropped  into  the  Post-office,  did  not  bring  him  to  light,  although  he  was  in 


"MY  FRIEND  GEORGE."  22$ 

the  habit  of  calling  regularly  at  the  "general-delivery"  window  for  his 
letters.  He  was  absent  from  the  city.  A  few  weeks  later,  when  he  turned 
up  again,  I  had  occasion  to  employ  him  in  an  entirely  different  capacity.  I 
will  tell  how  it  was  : 

I  had  missed  several  pairs  of  scissors, — an  indispensable  article  in  an 
editor's  office,  —  and  I  bought  a  new  and  rather  costly  pair,  which  I  locked 
up  in  a  drawer  of  my  writing-table.  One  morning  they  were  gone  !  I  had 
certainly  left  them  in  my  drawer,  as  usual.  I  asked  my  associate  if  he  had 
seen  them,  also  our  business  man,  who  was  in  the  same  room.  They  had 
not.  I  deemed  the  occasion  a  fitting  one  for  profanity.  My  partner  and 
our  business  man  both  laughed  at  me,  and  so  I  laughed,  too,  and  pretended 
that  I  was  n't  much  annoyed. 

"There  has  been  a  thief  about,"  said  I,  "for  I  perceive  that  strange 
hands  have  been  in  my  drawer,  although  I  found  it  locked." 

"That's  singular,"  said  my  partner. 

"  Oh,  by  the  way  !  "  said  our  business  man,  placing  a  pen  behind  his  ear, 
"  Mr.  Bartlett  told  me  that  some  things  had  been  stolen  from  his  office. 
The  same,  thief  may  have  been  up  here." 

Mr.  Bartlett  was  a  lawyer,  whose  offices  were  on  the  floor  beneath  our 
office  and  composing-room.  To  reach  our  floor  it  was  necessary  to  ascend 
two  flights  of  stairs,  passing  Mr.  Bartlett's  doors  in  the  corridor  of  the  second 
floor. 

"Where  is  my  Shakespeare?"  asked  my  partner,  abruptly. 

"  I  have  not  seen  it." 

"Nor  I." 

He  searched  everywhere.     It  was  gone  ! 

"  I  would  n't  lose  that  book  for  fifty  dollars  !  I  've  had  it  twenty  years  !  " 
he  said,  vehemently. 

Then  he  swore  and  /  laughed. 

But  further  discoveries  followed.  Several  other  books  were  missing  — 
Byron,  Moore,  Burns,  and  a  dictionary  of  authors. 

"Why,  the  thief  has  carried  off  an  arm-load!"  exclaimed  the  business 
man. 

The  deed  had  evidently  been  done  during  the  previous  night,  and,  sin 
gularly  enough,  the  intruder  had  locked  the  doors  after  him,  and  left  every 
thing  in  an  orderly  condition  —  except  what  he  had  not  left  at  all.  A  week 
passed,  and  our  nocturnal  friend  remembered  us  again.  A  "  Webster's  Un- 


224  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

abridged  Dictionary,"  "  Homer's  Iliad,"  and  several  other  valuable  works 
disappeared,  More  articles  had  also  been  conveyed  from  Mr.  Bartlett's 
law-offices.  The  thief  had  locked  the  doors  after  him,  and,  to  his  credit, 
left  everything  tidy. 

We  raved,  and  called  in  a  detective. 

"  Have  you  any  suspicions  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes ;  we  discharged  a  carrier,  not  long  ago  —  a  worthless  fellow,  named 
Jordan,  whom  we  had  found  both  unreliable  and  dishonest.  We  have  pub* 
lished  a  notice  warning  the  public  that  he  no  longer  transacts  any  business 
for  us,  and  now  he  is  evidently  having  his  revenge.  These  thefts  are 
plainly  committed  by  some  one  familiar  with  the  building.  I  consider  it 
next  to  certain  that  he  is  the  thief." 

This  positive  opinion  I  delivered  to  the  detective,  who  started  on  the 
suspected  person's  track.  He  found  him  in  his  own  lodgings,  in  a  disrepu 
table  quarter  of  the  city,  but  no  clue.  Nevertheless  he  acted  as  his  shadow 
for  awhile. 

Another  week  and  another  robbery  !  More  books,  some  umbrellas  and 
other  things  went.  Mr.  Bartlett  lost  more  law-books,  a  meerschaum  pipe, 
some  postage-stamps  and  stamped  envelopes.  It  was  the  same  neat  kind 
of  burglary.  It  began  to  look  like  a  mystery. 

Half  a  week,  and  another  visit  from  the  thief.  A  large  volume,  entitled 
"  Historical  Miscellany,"  and  some  other  valuable  works  of  reference  dis 
appeared.  The  poets  had  already  been  exhausted.  A  gold  pen,  some 
keys,  an  ebony  ruler,  and  some  other  useful  articles,  went  the  way  of  the 
books.  All  the  drawers  in  the  establishment  had  been  unlocked,  investi' 
gated  and  locked  up  again. 

A  couple  of  days,  then  another  visit  from  the  thief.  We  told  the  detective. 
He  said  it  was  n't  Jordan.  Still,  I  thought  it  must  be.  He  asked  who  else 
would  come  within  the  range  of  suspicion.  I  told  him  we  had  implicit 
confidence  in  all  our  employes.  He  shook  his  head  wisely,  and  noted 
their  names  and  residences. 

That  night  our  clock  was  stolen,  and  —  yes,  incredible  as  it  may  seern  — 
we  discovered  that  the  thief  had  actually  made  him  a  bed  of  old  newspapers 
in  a  back  room  we  did  not  use  much,  and  slept !  Such  audacity  was  some 
thing  new  and  novel  in  the  annals  of  crime.  Clearly  he  was  not  averse  to 
a-rest. 

Who  could  it  be  ?     We  began  to  suspect  all  our  employes,  one  by  one, 


«  MY  FRIEND   GEORGE."  22$ 

from  the  foreman  down  to  the  devil ;  and  I  fancied  I  could  see  each  one  in 
his  turn  put  on  a  decidedly  guilty  look.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to  suspect 
our  exemplary  business  man ;  nay,  I  even  wondered  if  it  might  not  be 
my  partner,  suffering  from  kleptomania;  and  I  verily  believe  he  half  sus 
pected  me. 

The  thief  came  oftener  and  oftener  —  almost  every  night —  and  got  into 
the  habit,  not  only  of  sleeping  regularly  in  our  vacant  room,  but  also  of 
making  his  toilet  there,  finding  a  place  for  his  comb  on  the  window-ledge, 
and  leaving  off,  in  a  corner,  his  soiled  collars  and  worn-out  neckties.  Once 
he  left  a  shirt  that  had  been  worn  since  washed,  though  not  worn  out,  and 
it  would  scarcely  have  surprised  me  now  if  his  washerwoman  had  called 
for  it.  It  was  bewildering. 

My  partner  and  I  took  turns  sitting  up  in  the  corridor  whole  nights  on 
guard.  I  sat  there  many  a  night  in  the  dampness  and  gloom,  with  my  re 
volver  in  my  hand,  momentarily  expecting  to  hear  the  sly  footfall  of  the 
thief  on  the  stairs. 

But  he  came  not. 

No  sooner  did  we  relax  our  vigilance,  however,  than  another  visit  hon 
ored  our  absence ;  another  night's  repose  was  enjoyed  in  the  vacant  room ; 
and  another  invoice  of  useful  articles  walked  off —  among  them  our  busi 
ness  man's  meerschaum  pipe,  which  he  highly  prized.  The  detective  said 
it  must  be  the  Chinese ;  for  they  are  sly,  crafty,  and  very  immoral. 

I  had  told  George  all  about  it,  and  one  morning,  when  I  met  him  on 
the  street,  it  occurred  to  me  that  here  was  a  chance  to  do  him  a  good 
turn. 

"  George,"  I  said,  "  I  am  fairly  worn  out  watching  for  that  sneaking  thief, 
and  so  is  my  partner.  We  cannot  lose  half  our  night's  rest  and  perform 
our  daily  duties  besides.  You  are  not  doing  anything;  now,  suppose  you 
watch  for  the  rascal  a  few  nights.  I  will  give  you  two  dollars  and  a  half 
per  night." 

"  All  right !  "  he  said,  eagerly. 

The  poor  fellow  was  delighted  with  the  temporary  employment,  and 
was  duly  installed  as  watchman.  I  employed  him  eight  nights,  and  paid 
him  twenty  dollars. 

But  the  thief  came  not. 

Then  I  told  him  he  need  not  watch  any  more,  as  the  robber  had  prob 
ably  left  the  city,  or  been  caught  up  on  some  other  charge.  Besides,  he 

P 


226  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

bad  already  carried  off  nearly  all  our  "  portable  property,"  and  probably 
would  never  come  again. 

But  he  did  come  on  two  different  nights  after  that,  took  some  things,  went 
to  bed  in  the  vacant  room,  rose  with  the  lark,  and  we  saw  him  not.  He 
was  a  dark,  mocking  mystery,  —  an  invisible  presence  floating  in  the  air, — 
and  I  felt  a  half-superstitious  thrill  crawling  clammily  down  my  spinal  col 
umn.  I  had  heard  of  such  things  as  spirits.  A  feeling  of  helpless  resigna 
tion  took  possession  of  us,  and  we  began  to  feel  as  though  everything  in  our 
office  belonged  to  that  thief,  and  that  we  were  merely  employed  there,  tern- 
porarily,  to  furnish  him  with  things  to  carry  off.  Who  should  say  but  that 
he  might  eventually  turn  us  out,  and  run  the  whole  thing  himself?  He  al 
ready  possessed  a  controlling  interest.  But  — 

"  Good-morning !  "  said  Mr.  Bartlett,  as  he  bolted  into  our  office  one  day. 
"I  have  a  clue  !  " 

"What!" 

We  sprang  to  our  feet.     Was  he  mortal,  after  all  ? 

"You  know,"  said  Mr.  Bartlett,  "that  I  told  you  some  stamped  envel 
opes  were  stolen  from  me.  Well,  on  each  envelope  were  printed  the 
words,  '  If  not  called  for,  return  to  C.  Bartlett,  San  Francisco.'  The  thief 
has  been  stupid  enough  to  use  these  envelopes  in  corresponding  with  his 
friends;  two  of  them  have  not  been  called  for,  and,  thanks  to  an  excellent 
postal  system,  duly  returned  to  me.  Here  are  the  letters,  signed  with  the 
full  name,  without  doubt,  of  the  thief  himself.  A  good  hand  he  writes, 
truly." 

"  Who  —  who  is  it?"  I  asked,  breathlessly. 

"  Some  one  whom  I  do  not  know.  I  have  brought  up  the  letters  to  see 
if  you  happen  to  know  the  writer.  Here  they  are." 

I  opened  one  of  the  letters,  while  my  partner  took  the  other,  and  my  eye 
quickly  sought  the  signature.  Heavens  !  My  brain  grew  dizzy.  Was  I 
dreaming  ?  The  neat  autograph  was  that  of  my  friend  George  !  The  letter 
was  written  in  his  own  faultless  hand,  and  boldly  signed,  "  George  Miller." 
I  was  fairly  stunned. 

"  Do  you  know  him?  "  asked  Mr.  Bartlett. 

"I  know  him  well,"  I  replied.  "This  is  his  writing  —  his  signature; 
but  he  is  the  last  person  in  the  world  whom  I  could  have  suspected  of  dis 
honesty  !  " 

"  Where  may  he  be  found  ?  " 


"  MY  FRIEND   GEORGE."  22J 

"I  do  not  know  where/  he  lodges  at  present;  but  I  meet  him  almost 
every  day." 

"  He  must  be  arrested." 

"  But  do  you  consider  this  conclusive  evidence?" 

"  Unless  he  can  give  some  plausible  explanation  as  to  how  he  came  by 
these  envelopes.  I  have  already  found  some  of  the  books  that  were  stolen 
from  me.  The  thief  had  sold  them  at  a  book-stand  in  Leidesdorff  Street. 
The  dealer  says  he  would  know  the  man  he  bought  them  of.  Besides,  if 
this  Miller  is  the  guilty  party,  it  will  soon  be  apparent  when  he  is  arrested. 
Are  you  willing  to  assist  me  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  if  it  were  my  brother  !  I  can  scarcely  dare  to  think  him  guilty, 
but  if  he  is,  he  is  the  most  heartless  ingrate  and  deceitful  xogue  that  ever 
lived  !  Meeting  me  daily,  face  to  face,  with  cordial  words  of  greeting,  and 
"stealing  from  me  at  night.  I  cannot  believe  it !  He  is  above  such  deeds — 
incapable  of  such  duplicity.  Nevertheless,  I  shall  assist  you  in  accom 
plishing  his  arrest,  then  let  the  truth  be  unfolded,  be  it  palatable  or  not." 

The  evidence,  though  purely  circumstantial,  was  almost  convincing,  and 
during  that  whole  day  my  ^troubled  thoughts  ran  on  the  subject.  At  times 
I  concluded  that  it  was  a  plain  case ;  then  again  drove  the  thought  from  me, 
vowing  that  it  was  simply  impossible  that  my  friend  George  could  be  a 
thief!  In  the  course  of  the  day  it  occurred  to  me  that  some  traces  of  the 
thief  might  be  found  in  the  vacant  room  in  which  he  had  slept  night  after 
night  with  such  nonchalance.  I  repaired  to  that  room,  and  among  the  dis 
ordered  newspapers  I  caught  sight  of  one  that  was  not  a  copy  of  our  own 
paper,  neither  was  it  one  of  our  exchanges;  and  its  irregular  creases  indi 
cated  that  a  bundle  had  been  wrapped  in  it.  I  seized  it  eagerly,  and  on  the 
margin  found,  plainly  written  in  his  own  handwriting,  the  name  of  George 
Miller  —  my  friend  George! 

It  must  be  so;  if  I  were  neither  dreaming  nor  insane,  my  friend  was  a 
thief!  Yes,  and  worse  than  a  thief —  a  dissembling,  ungrateful  wretch,  who 
had  at  the  midnight  hour  invaded  the  premises  and  pilfered  the  property  of 
one  whose  hand  had  fed  him  when  his  prodigal  ways  had  reduced  him  to 
penury  !  And  I  asked  myself:  "Was  there  ever  anything  like  it?" 

Next  morning  I  met  George  on  the  street.  He  was  smiling  and  good- 
natured  as  ever,  and  not  a  shade  of  deceit  or  uneasiness  crossed  his  counte 
nance.  Then  I  said  to  myself:  "  It  is  preposterous  !  "  But  I  remembered 
the  crushing  evidence  already  in  my  possession,  and  resolved  to  keep  the 


228  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

promise  I  had  made  Mr.  Bartlett.  I  spoke  pleasantly  as  usual  to  George, 
though  with  a  painful  effort,  and  asked  him  if  he  had  any  prospect  yet.  He 
little  imagined  that  I  had  in  my  pocket  then  a  bit  of  circumstantial  evidence 
that  would  go  a  long  way  toward  surrounding  him  with  the  dismal  walls 
that  sometimes  do  stand  between  evil-doers  and  society.  I  had  to  act  a  de 
ceitful  part,  and  it  wrung  my  heart  to  do  so ;  but  I  remembered  that,  if  he 
indeed  were  guilty,  he  was,  and  had  been  for  a  long  time,  acting  a  far  more 
deceitful  part  with  me. 

"  George,"  said  I,  "  if  you  have  not  struck  a  job  yet,  call  and  see  me  at 
the  office  at  five  o'clock  this  afternoon.  I  have  a  good  deal  to  attend  to  to 
day,  but  shall  be  at  leisure  by  five.  I  want  to  consult  you  about  an  im 
portant  matter;  but,  remember,  I  can't  promise  that  it  will  prove  to  be  of 
any  great  advantage  to  you.  Can  you  come  ?  " 

"  Certainly  !     What  time  —  five  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  five,  sharp." 

"All  right;  I'll  be  on  time." 

I  knew  he  would,  for  he  ever  evinced  a  marked  fondness  for  my  poor 
society.  I  next  called  at  the  police-office,  saw  my  detective,  and  informed 
him  of  the  astounding  discoveries  I  had  made,  and  of  the  engagement  at 
five  o'clock,  and  he  promised  to  be  punctually  on  hand. 

The  hours  passed  along,  and  as  five  o'clock  approached,  my  detective 
and  one  of  his  sagacious  colleagues  came  in.  My  partner  and  the  business 
man  were  present,  and  Mr.  Bartlett  also  came  in,  making  a  party  of  six. 
One  more  was  required  to  make  up  the  magic  number.  We  were  all 
seated ;  it  wanted  five  minutes  of  five. 

Footsteps  were  heard  ascending  the  lower  flight  of  stairs. 

"  How  shall  we  know  him?  It  might  be  some  one  else,"  suggested  one 
of  the  detectives. 

"  If  it  is  any  one  else,  I  will  introduce  him ;  if  it  is  he,  I  will  not.  It 
may  be  that  I  have  introduced  him  to  too  many  already." 

"  If  it  should  be  a  stranger?  " 

"  You  would  know,  that  by  his  actions." 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

The  footsteps  were  heard  on  the  second  flight  of  stairs ;  then  in  the  cor 
ridor  between  our  office  and  the  vacant  room.  In  another  moment  the 
door  opened,  and  my  friend  George  walked  in. 

He  half-hesitated,  and  cast  a  curious  glance  at  the  strangers. 


"  MY  FRIEND  GEORGE."  229 

"Well,  George,"  said  I,  "you're  in  time." 
"Yes." 

"Take  a  seat." 
I  did  not  introduce  him. 

An  awkward  silence  ensued  —  a  painful  silence,  during  which  I  could 
hear  the  beating  of  my  own  heart.  Probably  ten  seconds  had  elapsed, 
when  the  silence  was  broken  by  one  of  the  detectives,  who  coolly  said : 

"  I  believe  you  are  the  man  we  wanted  to  see.  Come  and  go  round  to 
the  office  with  us." 

"What!  the  police-office?"  quickly  responded  George, —  no  longer  My 
Friend  George, —  whose  guilty  soul  now  looked  forth  from  every  feature 
of  his  face,  as  though  a  mask  had  suddenly  dropped. 

He  comprehended  in  an  instant  that  his  guilt  had  been  discovered,  and 
without  another  word  arose  from  his  seat  and  meekly  accompanied  the 
detectives,  who  walked  on  either  side  of  him.  His  whole  bearing  suddenly 
changed  to  that  of  a  coward  and  sneak,  and  I  fancied  that  I  could  see  his 
very  form  and  figure  shrink  materially  in  dimensions.  It  would  have  been 
an  appropriate  moment  for  a  yawning  chasm  to  open  in  the  earth,  swallow 
him  up  and  hide  him  from  the  sight  of  men. 

Yes,  George  was  the  thief,  and  fancy  my  pain  and  mortification  as  the 
dreadful  truth  became  too  apparent.  He  whom  I  had  looked  upon  almost 
with  affection ;  whom  I  had  regarded  as  a  man  of  honor  and  culture,  with 
but  barely  one  little  failing ;  whom  I  had  introduced  to  scores  of  my 
friends,  recommending  him  as  a  sagacious  business  man,  and  a  perfectly 
trustworthy  gentleman  —  he,  after  all,  a  petty  thief!  It  touches  my  sensi 
bilities  to  this  day  to  think  of  it. 

George  was  taken  to  the  chief's  office,  questioned  and  searched.  He 
doggedly  denied  his  guilt,  but  made  enough  conflicting  and  utterly  irre 
concilable  statements  to  convict  a  regiment  of  thieves.  In  his  pockets  were 
found  the  key  of  Mr.  Bartlett's  desk  —  which  happened  to  fit  my  drawer  — 
and  a  number'  of  other  keys,  which  it  was  found  on  investigation  would 
open  all  the  doors  and  drawers  in  the  building.  He  had  still  in  his  pocket 
some  of  Mr.  Bartlett's  "return"  envelopes,  and  some  other  little  articles 
stolen  from  his  and  our  offices.  He  was  also  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
proprietor  of  the  book-stand,  who  clearly  recognized  him  as  the  man  who 
had  sold  him  a  number  of  Mr.  Bartlett's  law-books.  In  the  face  of  all 
this,  and  other  overpowering  evidence,  he  persisted  in  denying  his  guilt, 

20 


23O  SECREJ'S  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

piling  lie  on  top  of  lie,  and  stupidly  contradicting  himself,  till  it  would 
have  been  a  waste  of  time  and  an  insult  to  common  sense  to  pursue  the 
investigation  further.  He  was  mercifully  prosecuted  —  by  Mr.  Bartlett 
only  —  on  a  charge  of  petty  larceny,  and  the  judge  of  the  police  court, 
remarking  that  it  was  the  clearest  case  in  the  world,  sentenced  him  to  three 
months'  imprisonment. 

I  should  not  neglect  to  say  that  I  visited  him  twice  in  the  station-house 
before  his  trial  in  the  police-court,  when  he  sullenly  denied  his  guilt,  lying 
with  a  rapid  tongue  and  a  shockingly  bad  memory.  I  have  never  seen 
him  since. 

I  subsequently  learned  that  his  invasion  of  our  office  was  not  his  first 
crime.  Parties  who  knew  him  told  me  of  a  score  of  his  misdeeds,  equally 
infamous.  He  had  forged  a  check  in  New  York  before  I  ever  saw  him; 
he  had  stolen  several  watches,  and  borrowed  others  without  returning 
them ;  he  had  obtained  money  by  false  pretenses ;  he  had  been  guilty, 
time  and  again,  of  low  tricks  and  petty  subterfuges  to  cheat  the  confiding ; 
he  had  rewarded  numerous  favors  with  the  basest  treachery;  and  he 
kindly  remembered  one  man  who  had  sheltered  and  fed  him  several  weeks 
by  decamping,  between  two  days,  from  the  hospitable  roof,  and  carrying 
with  him  his  benefactor's  watch,  money  and  clothing.  To  crown  all,  he 
had  not  journeyed  to  California  so  much  to  build  up  his  fortunes  as  to 
escape  the  clutches  of  the  law,  which  sorely  threatened  him  in  Philadel 
phia  for  a  piece  of  rare  rascality ! 

Thus  abruptly  terminated  a  "  friendship  "  that  I  had  fostered  for  three 
years;  during  which  time,  with  all  my  fancied  sagacity  in  the  matter  of 
peering  down  into  the  depths  of  a  human  heart,  I  had  failed  to  discover, 
or  even  suspect,  the  true  character  of  this  brazen  dissembler. 


THE  BORE.  231 

CHAPTER    XXVI. 

THE  BORE. 

IF  there  is  one  annoyance  more  than  another  to  which  editors 
of  newspapers  are  subjected,  it  is  the  Bore ;  if  the  Bore 
afflicts  one  class  more  than  another  it  is  the  Editor.  Yet,  of 
all  men  who  ought  not  to  be  bothered  when  they  are  at  their 
work,  the  Editor  stands  first.  The  Editor  of  a  newspaper  — 
particularly  of  a  daily  —  has  much  peremptory  work  to  do,  and 
very  often  cannot  afford  to  spare  one  minute  of  his  time.  His 
work  is  imperative,  and  if  he  neglects  it  for  a  period  of  anything 
like  five  minutes,  he  must  work  to  the  verge  of  intense  straining 
for  the  next  thirty  or  sixty  minutes  to  make  up  for  the  lost  time. 
You  may  drop  in  and  talk  to  a  man  engaged  in  manual  labor, 
and  not  seriously  interrupt  him ;  you  cannot  do  so  with  the 
Editor.  He  works  with  his  mind  ;  you  take  his  attention,  you 
occupy  his  mind,  you  irritate  that  mind,  you  "bore"  it,  and 
for  the  time  he  is  powerless.  Suppose  you  should  go  into  a 
carriage- maker's  shop,  find  him  hurrying  to  have  a  certain 
wheel  done  by  five  o'clock,  and  suppose  you  should  constantly 
pick  up  his  tools,  as  he  lays  them  down  for  a  moment  at  a  time, 
so  that  when  he  reaches  for  them  he  does  not  find  them,  but 
must  drop  his  work  and  go  to  hunting  for  them  — suppose  all 
this  :  how  would  he  get  along  ?  How  would  he  like  it  ?  Well, 
you  commit  no  less  a  breach  of  decorum  when  you  go  into  a 
sanctum  and  "bore"  the  Editor  when  he  is  at  his  hard,  hard 
work.  His  tools  are  his  brain  faculties,  and  when  you  occupy 
them  you  take  his  tools,  and,  as  it  were,  scatter  them  around 
over  the  room.  To  do  this  wittingly,  even  for  one  minute, 
during  an  editor's  working-hours,  is  little  less  than  a  crime. 


232  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

I  was  once,  with  a  couple  of  assistants,  conducting  a  small 
daily,  when  time  and  again  a  really  very  good-hearted  gentle 
man,  little  realizing  the  enormity  of  his  conduct,  came  in 
during  busy  hours,  sat  down,  and  talked,  and  talked,  and  talked, 
almost  by  the  hour,  and  even  took  up  exchanges  and  read  aloud 
therefrom  multitudes  of  stale  paragraphs,  often  when  I  was 
"hurried  to  death,"  and  when  I  was  "cudgeling"  my  dizzy 
brain  over  a  piece  of  unusually  cabalistic  manifold  copy, 
or  straining  my  whole  intellect  in  wild  endeavors  to  penetrate 
the  mazes  of  an  "  out."  This  I  endured  many  and  many  a  day 
because  I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  (although  many  an  edi 
tor  could  very  soon  have  succeeded  in  finding  it  in  his)  to  hurt 
the  innocent  man's  feelings  by  putting  a  sacred  truth  in  some 
such  shape  as  this :  "  I  'd  be  very  much  obliged  to  you  if  you 
wouldn't  interrupt  me  while  I  am  at  work."  He  did  not 
understand  the  case ;  he  meant  well  enough,  and  he  would  to 
day  be  shocked  if  he  knew  how  much  he  used  to  annoy  me. 

Bores  do  afflict  every  paper,  more  or  less.  The  highest- 
toned  New  York  daily  is  not  free  from  them.  Why,  many  a 
time  the  door  of  the  editorial-room  of  such  a  paper  as  the  New 
York  Herald,  World,  Tribune,  Times,  or  Sun  has  opened,  and 
a  country  subscriber  has  stalked  in  and  sat  down  to  "have  a 
chat"  with  the  Editor.  In  such  newspaper  establishments  as 
these,  however,  measures  are  generally  taken  to  guard  against 
promiscuous  intrusion.  But  even  the  most  stately  newspaper 
has  its  Bores.  If  measures  are  taken  to  exclude  "Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry,"  the  Bore  enters  in  the  person  of  some 
loftier  being  —  something  that  towers  above  "the  masses." 
Influential  men  —  Governors  —  Members  of  Congress  —  Mayors 
of  Cities — "eminent  divines" — all  come  in  occasionally 
when  they  are  not  wanted,  although  it  is  generally  because  they 
don't  understand  the  situation.  I  have  more  than  once  had  a 


THE   BORE.  233 

United  States  Senator,  Member  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
Governor  of  a  State,  or  Mayor  of  a  City  "drop  in  "  on  me  at 
a  busy  time,  when  I  would  much  rather  have  seen  the  telegraph 
messenger,  or  the  devil  from  the  composing-room.  To  set 
aside  all  possibilities  of  doing  any  one  an  injustice,  however, 
even  by  implication,  I  must  say  that  I  have  never  yet  been 
"bored"  by  a  President  of  the  United  States.  I  think,  how 
ever,  that  every  editor  who  has  been  on  a  large  and  influential 
daily  paper  will  say  that  I  have  not  exaggerated  with  regard  to 
the  Honorable  Senators  and  Members  of  the  House, 

But  it  is  in  the  Sanctum  of  the  weekly  paper  that  the  Bore 
shines  with  his  maximum  brilliancy,  assumes  his  grandest  pro 
portions.  It  is  there  that  he  is  "at  home;  "  there  that,  with 
a  frightful  atmosphere  of  leisure  surrounding  him  like  a  halo, 
he  leans  back  in  a  spare  arm-chair,  throws  his  feet  up  on  the 
Editor's  table,  and  thus  sits,  and  bores,  and  bores,  and  bores ! 
It  is  there  he  comes,  and  the  Editor  thinks  he  is  "never  going 
to  leave."  The  great  trouble  is,  he  is  often  a  well-meaning, 
good-hearted  fellow,  whom  no  gentleman  would  like  to  insult, 
if  he  could  help  it.  I  remember  that  once  while  publishing  a 
San  Francisco  paper  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  pages,  a  writer 
used  to  come  in,  sit  down,  and  blow,  and,  incredible  as  it  may 
appear,  deliberately  spit  tobacco-juice  into  a  disordered  pile  of 
exchanges  lying  upon  the  floor.  I  am  probably  a  mild-tempered 
person,  and  I  never  said  a  word,  nor  even  looked  cross,  to  in 
timate  that  such  a  proceeding  was  other  than  highly  satisfac 
tory  to  me ;  but  I  do  know  editors  who  would  have  brained 
him. 

Then  there  was  another  party,  named  Pickles,  that  inflicted 
himself  upon  me  while  I  was  conducting  the  same  paper.  He 
was  a  "  writer,"  and  once  or  twice  brought  in  little  articles  that 
I  deemed  "  worth  publishing,"  after  which  there  was  no  getting 

20* 


234  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM, 

rid  of  him.  Indeed,  I  used  to  miss  him  when  he  came  in  only 
once  a  day.  There  was  a  sort  of  delicious  void  in  the  atmo 
sphere  of  that  sanctum  when  Pickles  stayed  away,  for  example, 
a  whole  afternoon.  In  such  cases  my  short  moments  of  rest 
were  usually  occupied  by  such  mental  talk  as  this:  "  I  do 
wonder  where  Pickles  can  be.  Not  dead,  I  —  No.  I  never 
have  been  a  lucky  man."  Pickles  had  not  within  him  any 
elements  of  literary  greatness,  and  I  learned  to  dread,  as  I 
learned  to  recognize,  the  sound  of  his  footsteps  on  the  stairs. 
But  then  he  was  so  good-natured.  Why,  he  would  have  been 
a  humorist  if  he  had  been  "smart  "  enough. 

One  day  Pickles  came  in  when  I  was  very  busy  —  very  busy, 
indeed.  He  carried  under  his  arm  a  great  mass  of  manuscript, 
and  I  shuddered  as  I  contemplated  what  might  be  in  store  for 
me.  He  laid  it  down  before  me  on  a  proof  for  which  the  fore 
man  was  impatiently  waiting,  and  opened  his  discourse  by 
paying  me  the  following  high  compliment : 

"  Mr.  ,  I  have  great  confidence  in  your  good  taste  and 

good  judgment — more  than  I  have  in  any  other  man's  in 
California;  and — " 

"  Yes?  Thank  you,"  I  replied,  almost  as  much  flattered  as 
the  smooth-tongued  Mr.  Chester  was  flattered  by  the  glaring 
compliments  of  Simon  Tappertit ;  and  I  gently  removed  the 
manuscript  from  my  proof. 

"The  fact  is,"  Pickles  proceeded,  "the  fact  is,  I've  been 
writing  a  romance.  I  thought  I'd  keep  it  from  you,  and  treat 
you  to  a  little  surprise." 

1 '  Ah  —  yes  —  exactly. ' ' 

This  demon  imagined  that  his  "literary"  work  was  of  such 
importance  that  had  I  known  he  was  "writing  a  romance  "  my 
mind  must  have  dwelt  upon  it  day  and  night,  to  the  exclusion 
of  interests  at  the  first  view  slightly  nearer  to  me. 


THE   BORE.  235 

"I  intend  to  publish  it  in  book  form." 

"Do  you?" 

I  now  felt  better. 

"Yes,  although  "  —  I  now  felt  worse —  "  I  would  not  object 
to  your  publishing  it  first  as  a  serial  in  your  paper. ' ' 

"tto?" 

My  heart  sank  within  me. 

"No  —  But  we  '11  talk  that  over  after  you  've  read  it." 

"Yes,  after  —  exactly  —  after  I've  read  it?  Well,  yes,  I 
see." 

"Yes,  I'd  like  you  to  read  it  critically  and  tell  me  what  you 
think  of  it." 

"  Very  well.  I'll  just  take  charge  of  it,  and  — call  in  again, 
say,  about  Saturday." 

"All  right." 

After  a  couple  of  hours  he  left,  and  strange  to  say,  he  did 
not  return  before  Saturday,  thereby  missing  two  whole  days,  a 
circumstance  entirely  unparalleled  by  any  preceding  circum 
stance  in  the  history  of  my  acquaintance  with  him. 

Well,  I  am  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  I  knew  enough 
of  Pickles' s  literary  powers  to  put  it  in  the  form  of  an  axiom 
that  he  couldn't  write  an  acceptable  romance;  so,  I  merely 
glanced  at  the  manuscript  and  laid  it  away  in  a  drawer  till  he 
should  come  in  again.  He  "  looked  in  "  with  a  beaming  face 
and  a  cheerful  "  Hello,"  on  the  ensuing  Saturday. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "did  you  — did  you  —  " 

He  hesitated.  Perhaps  he  felt  that  my  decision  in  reference 
to  his  "  romance  "  was  too  important  a  matter  to  be  communi 
cated  very  abruptly ;  like  the  old  darkey  who  said:  "  Massa, 
one  ob  your  oxes  is  dead.  Todder,  too.  'Fraid  to  tell  you  ob 
bofe  togedder,  fear  you  couldn't  bore  it." 

"Mr.   Pickles,"  I  said,  calmly,  "I  have  looked  over  your 


236  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

manuscript," — so  I  had, —  "and  —  of  course  you  want  me  to 
be  perfectly  frank  with  you  ?  ' ' 

"Ye — yes;  O,  yes,"  he  replied;  but  his  countenance  fell. 

The  man  evidently  had  a  presentiment  of  evil. 

"Well,  then,  Mr.  Pickles,  I  must  say,  in  all  candor,  that  I 
did  not  find  the  story  to  be  what  I  might  have  wished.  To  tell 
the  truth  about  it,  which  I  know  you  wish  me  to  do  —  " 

"  Certainly  "  — pale,  and  with  dry  lips. 

"To  tell  the  truth  about  it,  in  writing  this  story  you  have 
not  done  yourself  justice — ,"  nor  had  he  ;  for  he  ought  to  have 
been  at  work  with  a  hatchet  and  saw, —  "  and  I  advise  you  not 
to  attempt  to  get  it  published.  At  least,  keep  it  six  months  or 
so,  like  Virgil  used  to  do,  and  then  you  can  look  over  it  again 
and  view  it  more  calmly  than  now,  when  it  is  so  fresh  from 
your  mind.  I  trust  you  will  not  blame  me  for  thus  being  en 
tirely  frank  with  you?  " 

"  O,  no ;  not  at  all,"  he  said ;  but  I  could  see  that  he  com 
mended  me  in  the  same  degree  that  the  bishop  commended  Gil 
Bias  for  kindly  notifying  him  (in  accordance  with  the  good 
man's  own  instructions)  that  his  powers  were  beginning  to  fail. 

It  is  useless  to  try  to  conceal  the  fact  that,  as  "society"  is 
at  present  "organized,"  your  dearest  friend  will  hate  you  for 
pointing  out  his  defects, —  such  as  he  cannot  himself  see, —  no 
matter  how  pure  and  unselfish  your  motives  in  so  doing  may  be. 
Shall  we  get  over  that  some  day  ? 

Pickles  took  his  manuscript,  took  his  departure,  and  —  O, 
joy  !  — never  more  came  into  my  sanctum.  After  all,  there  are 
some  things  that  work  together  for  our  good,  if  I  may  be  par 
doned  for  paraphrasing  Scripture. 

While  conducting  the  Enunciator  in  San  Francisco,  which 
paper  I  think  I  have  alluded  to  once  or  twice  before,  I  probably 
had  as  fine  an  opportunity  as  is  afforded  anywhere  to  learn  what 


THE  BORE.  237 

a  newspaper  Bore  is ;  and  I  once  published  in  that  paper  —  files 
of  which  I  have  preserved  —  a  humorous  article  on  the  subject, 
by  "  O.  Job  Jones,"  a  writer  alluded  to  in  another  chapter,  and 
although  it  may  read  like  hyperbole,  it  is  nearer  to  the  truth 
than  it  is  to  caricature,  and  I  here  reproduce  it : 

THE  BORE  AND  THE  SANCTUM. 

"  Ours  "  is  such  a  genial  nature  that  we  often  go  mad  with  pride  and  joy 
at  the  thought  of  the  wide  circle  of  friends  who,  in  their  leisure  moments, 
drop  in  upon  us  during  our  business  hours,  to  bore  our  lives  pleasantly  away. 
As  they  rarely  stay  longer  than  three  or  four  hours  at  a  time,  we  enjoy  their 
visits  very  much.  These  visits  are  certain  to  occur  at  times  when  our  duties 
are  most  pressing,  and  hence  we  are  very  much  stimulated  and  encouraged 
by  their  lively  and  agreeable  conversation  —  to  proceed  with  our  work  with 
great  deliberation. 

Here  is  a  fair  average  diary  of  one  of  our  busiest  days : 
We  arrive  at  our  office  feeling  that  there  is  a  day's  work  before  us,  and  we 
go  at  it  with  a  will.  We  take  off  our  hat  and  coat,  push  back  our  hair,  as 
sume  our  chair,  take  up  our  pen  and  proceed  to  put  into  the  shape  of  an 
editorial  our  deep  cogitations  on  a  subject  in  metaphysics  that  agitates  the 
public  mind.  We  write  : 

"  In  the  interminable  intricacies  between  subject  and  object,  we  cannot 
help  leaning  to  the  opinion  that  in  a  concentration  of  individual  identity  the 
empiric  theory,  derived  as  it  is  from  ethnologic  rather  than  from  psychologic 

de  —  " 

"Hell-lo!"  exclaims  a  very  musical  voice  at  this  moment,  as  the  door 
bursts  open  and  displays  the  face,  all  covered  with  sunshine,  of  our  "friend" 
Smith. 

It  is  a  holiday  of  his,  but  in  the  warmth  of  his  genial  nature  he  never 
stops  to  reflect  that  it  is  not  one  of  ours. 

We  cannot  help  saying,  "  Good-morning,"  and  trying  to  appear  friendly, 
as  he  isn't  a  bad-hearted  fellow.  Besides,  he  may  not  intend  to  spend 
more  than  half  the  clay  with  us. 

"  How  are  you  to-day?"  he  asks,  as  he  walks  forward,  leaving  the  door 
open,  and  throws  himself  into  an  arm-chair  within  twelve  inches  of  us,  with 
a  perfectly  at-home  air  that  makes  us  feel  very  happy. 


238  SECXETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Our  ruddy  complexion  and  generally-robust  appearance  compel  us  to 
admit  that  we  are  — "  O,  pretty  well." 

"  At  the  theater  last  night?  "  he  asks,  in  a  tone  loud  enough  to  go  clear 
across  the  street  and  come  back  fresh  as  ever. 

"Ye —  no  —  yes,"  we  reply,  abstractedly,  scarcely  knowing  whether  we 
want  to  say,  "yes,"  or  "no,"  or  whether  we  really  were  at  the  theater  or 
not. 

"Which  one?" 

Beginning  to  regain  our  composure,  we  tell  him. 

"  So  was  I !"  he  says.  »  Was  n't  that  one  of  the  —  "  and  he  proceeds  to 
edify  us  with  exhaustive  criticisms  on  the  play,  we  having  already  "  writ 
ten  it  up." 

"  Have  you  the  morning  papers  ?  "  he  asks,  at  the  conclusion  of  his 
remarks. 

"  Yes,  there  they  are,"  we  reply,  joyfully. 

Now,  he  will  read  awhile,  and  we  shall  finish  our  editorial.  We  once 
more  dip  our  pen  into  the  ink,  and  are  just  contracting  our  brows  prepar 
atory  to  the  elimination  of  a  great  idea,  and  it  has  barely  made  a  dot  on  the 
paper  when  Smith  blurts  out : 

"  O,  by  thunder !  A  fellow  stabbed  last  night  'at  I  knew  in  St.  Louis  ! 
Well,  I  declare!  Always  thought  him  a  peaceable  man.  His  father — " 
And  he  goes  on  to  give  us  a  history  of  the  stabbed  man,  and  the  stabbed 
man's  father,  and  the  stabbed  man's  father's  business,  and  everything  per 
taining  to  the  stabbed  man  —  in  whom  and  which  we  feel  perhaps  as  much 
interest  as  we  feel  in  the  person  and  affairs  of  that  yellow  Chinaman  pass 
ing  along  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street. 

There  is  a  pause.  We  are  a  little  disturbed,  but  begin  to  collect  ourselves 
and  square  around  to  our  work  again.  That  "  idea,"  recently  dispersed 
like  the  morning  dew  before  the  summer  sun,  is  beginning  to  come  back 
and  to  concentrate  itself  again  at  our  earnest  bidding.  We  catch  a  glimmer 
of  its  returning  outline.  There,  we  have  it.  Now,  pen,  to  thy  — 

Bang!  Bump!  Thump!  It 's  only  Smith's  number  13,  heavy-soled  boots, 
thrown  up  on  one  end  of  our  table,  in  a  free-and-easy  way,  as  he  leans  back 
in  his  chair  and  places  himself  in  an  attitude  to  squint  more  complacently 
upon  the  morning  paper  that  screens  his  hideous  countenance.  The  idea 
vanishes ;  but  the  cold  perspiration  on  our  brow  does  not, 

We  glance  boldly  at  those  feet,  as  if  plainly  to  say  that  we  should  feel 


THE  BORE.  239 

indebted  to  their  owner  if  he  would  kindly  remove  them;  but  Smith  is 
intently  regarding  a  paragraph  in  the  newspaper,  and  sees  not  our  vexation. 
All  is  quiet  for  a  minute  or  two;  then,  somewhat  reconciled  to  the  disa 
greeable  state  of  things  in  our  sanctum,  we  begin  very  slowly  to  collect  our 
scattered  thoughts,  and  once  more  to  concentrate  our  great  mind  upon  our 
subject. 

«  Oh  —  ah  —  say !  "  Smith  exclaims ;  "  did  you  hear  about  Wilkins  ?  " 

"  Who's  Wilkins  ?"  we  ask,  grinding  our  teeth. 

"Oh,  I  thought  you  knew  him;  but — let  me  see  —  Oh,  no;  it  wasn't 
you  that  was  with  him  and  me  at  the  Cliff  House  last  summer?  No,  no  — 
now  that  I  come  to  think,  it  was  Charlie  Brown,  of  Philadelphia.  Well, 
this  Wilkins,  he  — "  And  for  just  twenty-five  minutes  Smith  discourses 
on  Wilkins ;  but  our  reeling  brain  takes  no  note  of  the  recital,  and  at  the 
end  we  cannot  record  half  a  dozen  words  of  it. 

He  reads  again ;  we  silently  brood  over  our  miseries.  We  do,  at  last, 
manage  to  add  a  line  to  our  dissertation.  We  are  beginning  to  think  we 
shall  be  able  to  write  two  or  three  stickfuls  without  interruption,  when  Smith 
suddenly  draws  his  tremendous  feet  from  the  table  and  lets  them  fall  upon 
the  floor  with  a  loud  crash,  flings  the  morning  paper  carelessly  upon  our 
table,  not  caring  whether  it  falls  upon  the  manuscript  under  our  nose  or 
not,  —  and  it  does,  —  and  says  he  guesses  he'll  go,  to  which  we  have  not 
the  strength  to  reply. 

But  he  doesn't  go  just  yet.  He  sits  uneasily  a  moment,  yawns,  drawls 
out  languidly,  " O,  Lord!"  twists  himself  around  in  his  chair,  as  though 
to  crush  and  grind  certain  fleas  that  may  be  biting  him,  and  finally  — 
heavens,  what  a  relief ! — gets  up  and  moves  toward  the  door.  We  are 
just  preparing  to  say,  "  Good-morning,"  as  pleasantly  as  possible,  regretting 
that  it  might  not  be  "  Farewell,  eternally,"  instead,  when  he  stops  and 
stands  near  the  door. 

"  Why  don't  you  drop  round  and  see  a  feller  ?  "  he  asks,  with  an  air  of 
perfect  leisure. 

"  Haven't  time,"  we  reply.  "  We  are  pressed  to  death  here  for  time,  and 
cannot  get  out  even  to  our  meals.  We  are  fearfully  behind  time  now." 
And  we  dip  our  pen  into  the  ink  with  energy  and  determination. 

"Well,"  he  moralizes,  "you  editors  do  have  a  great  time  of  it,  I  reckon. 
Worked  to  death.  Well  —so  long." 

We  barely  answer  him,  and  he  passes  out,  very  deliberately  closing  the 


240  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

door  after  him,  which  creaks  in  a  thrilling  manner,  although  it  never  did  so 
before.  We  really  believe  that  man  Smith  carries  an  evil  influence  about 
him.  We  trust,  in  all  benevolence  of  spirit,  that  he  may  fall  down  the 
stairs  and  break  his  neck !  No  such  good  luck.  We  hear  the  clatter  of  his 
hoofs  on  the  stairs,  slowly  —  ah,  too  carefully! — descending  to  the  bottom, 
and  he  is  safe ;  safe  to  come  and  torment  us  again,  whenever  the  Evil  One 
puts  it  into  his  head. 
Now  to  our  work. 

"  — dition  of  self-consciousness,  as  is  demonstrated  by  a  re-active  principle 
of  —  " 

"  Here  we  are !  "  And  the  door  is  flung  open,  to  reveal  the  hateful  form 
of  our  "friend"  Watkins,  whose  beaming  face  looks  like  the  Fourth  of 

July. 

We  make  a  powerful  effort  to  be  civil  —  barely  succeeding. 

"  Always  at  work,"  he  sagely  remarks,  as  he  takes  a  seat  on  one  corner 
of  our  sacred  writing-table,  with  his  feet  dangling  down,  and  begins  drum 
ming  with  his  fingers.  "  No  rest  for  the  wicked."  This  he  considers  wit, 
and  smiles  good-naturedly.  "  Well,  what  a  time  of  it  you  Bohemians 
have !  " 

Bohemians ! 

We  are  silent.  We  try  to  speak,  but  could  not  utter  a  sentence  for  a 
million  dollars  a  word. 

"What's  new?"  he  asks,  in  a  vigorous  voice,  that  sounds  as  softly 
musical  as  the  combined  manufacture  of  boilers  and  the  filing  of  many  saws. 

"  Nothing  —  nothing,"  we  reply,  absently,  while  our  mind  dwells  in  no 
complimentary  terms  on  "  the  day  he  was  born." 

He  thrusts  his  hands  in  his  trousers-pockets,  and  changes  the  position  of 
his  body,  thus  swinging  our  light  table  to  and  fro  and  threatening  to  crush 
it ;  while  we  sit  champing  the  end  of  our  pen-holder  like  an  untamed  steed 
chewing  a  bridle-bit. 

Presently  Watkins  abandons  his  seat  and  walks  around  for  awhile,  up 
setting  a  chair  in  his  perambulations  and  making  untold  racket.  Several 
pictures,  hanging  upon  the  walls,  bear  witness  to  our  refined  taste.  These 
become  a  subject  of  Mr.  Watkins's  unasked-for  criticism.  Then  he  ques 
tions  us.  Where  did  we  get  this  one?  What  is  the  meaning  of  that  one  ? 
Who  "did"  that  other  one?  When?  Where?  How  long?  How  much? 
Which  ?  Who  ?  Color  ?  Shade  ?  Age  ?  Name  ?  These  are  his  queries, 


THE   BORE.  241 

boiled  down.  We  convey  ail  the  information  we  can,  in  the  fewest  possible 
words;  while  Watkins  fills  up  every  interstice  with  voluble  criticisms  —  both 
of  the  pictures  and  our  taste. 

At  last  he  sits  down  in  an  arm-chair  and  begins  a  real  chat. 

Our  editorial  is  gone  to  the  dogs  for  this  time,  and  we  calmly  lay  down 
our  pen  and  meditate  revenge.  We  glare  upon  Watkins,  when  he  is  n't 
looking,  with  fiendish  hate.  We  could  kill  him.  We  could  stab,  shoot, 
hang,  drown,  or  brain  him.  We  could !  But  at  last  we  think  of  a  nobler, 
purer,  sweeter,  holier  revenge.  Watkins  has  a  wife  who  is  a  shrew,  and 
who  hates  one  drop  of  liquor  worse  than  a  thousand  bushels  of  rattlesnakes. 
Watkins  dare  not  drink —  unless  very  much  tempted;  then  when  he  does, 
he  is  certain  to  go  the  whole  length  and  as  certain  of  the  dreadful  conse 
quences.  With  an  outward  smile,  to  conceal  our  inward  malignity,  we  say : 

"Watkins  —  been  hard  at  work  —  feel  rather  dry:  let's  go  out  around 
the  corner  and  take  something." 

"Why,  I  —  the  fact  is  —  " 

"O,  nonsense.  Come  along.  Just  one  won't  hurt  anybody.  You'll 
wrong  me  if  you  refuse  to  go  and  take  one  with  me  when  I  so  much  need 
it.  I  will  not  drink  alone." 

Without  another  word  he  allows  himself  to  be  led  away  like  a  lamb  to 
the  sacrifice.  We  conduct  him  to  a  "  place  "  where  we  know  he  is  certain 
to  meet  some  old  acquaintances. 

"  Well,  what  are  you  going  to  take  ?" 

He  calls  for  whisky,  and  \ve  silently  hiss  between  our  clenched  teeth  : 

"  Now,  venom,  to  thy  work ! " 

We  have  just  drank  when  several  old  chums  come  in,  and  they  sing  out : 

"  Hello,  Watkins,  old  fellow  !  " 

Watkins  sees  us  turning  as  if  to  go,  and  says : 

"  Hold  on.  Let 's  have  another.  Here,  set  'em  up.  What  are  you  all 
going  to  have,  boys  ?  " 

"Will  be  back  in  one  minute,  Watkins,"  we  say;  "merely  want  to  hail 
a  friend  who  just  passed.  Take  your  drink  and  wait  here." 

"All  right." 

Glasses  are  set  up  with  joyful  clinks,  we  see  the  revel  begin,  and  we 
rejoice  as  we  ponder  on  what  Watkins  will  catch  when  he  goes  home  in 
five  or  six  hours  from  now ;  and  in  a  pleasant  frame  of  mind  we  return  to 
our  sanctum,  lock  our  door  and  complete  our  editorial. 
21  Q 


242  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

A  NOTED  LIBEL  SUIT. 

IN  the  year  18 —  I  was  connected  with  a  Philadelphia  paper 
pretty  well  known  as  the  Sunday  Mercury.  Its  proprietors 
were  Wm.  Meeser  and  Fred  Grayson, —  both  pretty  good  fel 
lows, —  the  former  a  printer  and  journalist,  the  latter  a  lawyer 
and  journalist.  Most  of  my  transactions  with  the  firm  were 
concluded  between  Mr.  Meeser  and  myself,  and  it  was  he  who 
one  Monday  morning,  in  autumn,  said  to  me : 

"I  wish  you  would  write  us  a  good  spicy  story,  like  some 
you  have  already  written,"  — for  I  had  contributed  four  or  five 
serials  to  the  Mercury, —  "  and  make  it  entirely  local." 

"Very  well,"  I  replied,  having  no  engagements  that  would 
be  likely  to  prevent  me.  "  Any  special  features?  " 

"Yes.  Give  it  strong  political  bearings.  Illustrate  in  it 
how  Rings  are  managed ;  how  the  public  is  defrauded  by  cor 
rupt  office-holders  j  how  the  people  are  cajoled  and  ruled  by 
the  manipulators  of  party  organizations ;  how  the  masses  are 
led  blindly  to  vote  for  bad  men  without  knowing  it,  and  often 
without  the  moral  courage  to  help  it.  You  see  the  idea.  Of 
course,  picture  these  things  in  a  romance,  in  a  general  way, 
merely  as  an  illustration.  Make  no  allusion  to  any  distinctive 
office,  or  office-holder,  and  be  careful  to  embody  nothing  that 
approaches  either  a  libel  or  an  injustice  to  any  one -or  any  party* ' ' 

"  To  be  sure.     How  long  a  story  would  you  like  this  time  ?  " 

"I  don't  care.  It  might  run  six  months  if  your  chain  of 
characters  and  incidents  will  hold  out  that  long.  As  to  remu 
neration,  fix  your  price,  and  we  '11  pay  it." 

"All  right." 


A   NOTED   LIBEL   SUIT.  243 

This  was  all  —  the  whole  sum  and  substance  of  what  was  said 
or  understood  between  Mr.  Meeser  and  myself  concerning  the 
writing  of  a  fictitious  story,  the  first  two  chapters  of  which 
proved  to  be  the  corpus  delicti  on  which  was  based  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  "criminal"  prosecutions  ever  conducted  in 
the  city  of  Philadelphia.  I  did  not  again  see  Mr.  Meeser  until 
I  had  written  three  hundred  manuscript  pages  of  the  story,  for 
the  reason  that  I  was  suddenly  called  to  the  country,  over  four 
hundred  miles  from  Philadelphia,  and  it  was  in  the  rural  region 
that  I  did  the  work.  I  named  my  story,  "  Philadelphia,  By 
Day  and  By  Night,"  with  a  sub-title,  and  sent  the  first  two  or 
three  hundred  pages  by  mail  to  the  Mercury,  and  its  publication 
began  at  once.  The  first  chapter  opened  with  the  following 
picture  of  a  leading  "  character,"  true  to  the  life  in  the  abstract, 
specifically  imaginary  and  fictitious  : 

The  Honorable  William  Bilman,  who  held  the  high  position  of  Tribune 
of  Philadelphia,  sat  alone  in  his  own  office,  one  summer  day,  wrapped  in  a 
moody  reverie,  such  as  he  sometimes,  in  his  idle  moments,  indulged.  He  was 
pondering  over  the  many,  and  curious,  and  various  deeds  —  none  of  them 
good  —  which  he  had  done  from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  his  political 
career.  Naturally  he  may  not  have  been  a  very  bad  man,  but  years  of  plan 
ning,  and  scheming,  and  contending,  and  cheating,  and  defrauding,  such  as 
are  incident  to  the  career  of  an  unscrupulous  politician,  had  stamped  upon  his 
face  a  look  of  malignity  and  cunning.  His  very  eyes  indicated  that  he  was 
used  to  suspicion  and  deception,  for  he  never  looked  squarely  at  anything 
or  anybody.  If  he  looked  at  the  clock  to  see  what  time  it  was,  he,  from 
mere  force  of  habit,  first  glanced  at  it  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  to  see 
if  it  was  looking  at  him. 

As  he  sat  there,  with  his  left  hand  resting  on  his  writing-table,  an  annoy 
ing  fly  crawled  over  the  back  of  it;  and  he  first  half-closed  his  eyes,  as  if  to 
make  it  think  he  was  not  observing  it,  and  thus  render  it  unwary,  that  he 
might  take  it  by  surprise ;  then  smack !  came  the  palm  of  his  right  hand  on 
the  back  of  his  left.  But  the  provoking  insect  escaped  unhurt,  for  a  finger, 
located  between  the  forefinger  and  the  little  finger  of  Tribune  Bilman's 
right  hand,  was  wanting,  and  the  fly  —  which  otherwise  would  have  been 
crushed  —  buzzed  off  and  away  through  the  unoccupied  space. 

"Curses!  Curses!  Curses!"  pondered  William  Bilman,  glancing  fur 
tively,  as  usual,  at  the  vacant  place  his  lost  finger  had  occupied  —  it  was  a 
finger  he  had  had  chewed  off  in  a  quiet  bar-room  fight  before  he  had 


244  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

become  so  great  a  man.  "  Curses  on  that  hound  that  crippled  my  hand  ! 
I  hate  him  more  and  more  every  day !  Well,  that's  foolish,  too.  Haven't 
I  long  since  repaid  him?  He  little  thought  then  that  I  should  ever  become 
Tribune  of  Philadelphia,  with  power  to  hunt  him  down  and  thrust  him  into 
a  prison-cell  for  twenty  years !  Neither  did  I  nor  any  one  else  at  that  time. 
Well,  he  's  safe.  Twenty  years  !  O,  that 's  a  mere  trifle.  Ha !  ha !  ha  ! 
Where  is  he  now?  Working  away  in  his  cheerless  prison  —  at  this  very 
moment,  I'll  venture  to  say  —  making  boots  and  shoes  for  his  bread  and 
water,  with  prospects  of  liberty  in  about  twelve  years  from  now.  Ha  !  ha  ! 
ha!  Will  he  live  so  long?  Rather  doubtful.  Let  him  ever  come  out, 
however,  and  I  '11  send  him  back  for  forty  years  !  O,  /can  do  it !  I  have 
the  power !  I  can  make  out  a  case  of  burglary,  or  larceny,  or  murder, 
against  him  or  any  man  I  hate !  O,  /  am  in  a  position  to  glut  my  ven 
geance,  and  put  my  foot  on  the  necks  of  my  enemies !  They  called  me  a 
rough  fifteen  years  ago.  Well,  suppose  I  was  !  I  'm  not  a  rough  now.  No  ; 
I  'm  a  great  lawyer,  and  the  Tribune  of  Philadelphia.  Suppose  I  was  once 
concerned  in  a  larceny  case ;  and  suppose,  even,  that  was  the  cause  of  my 
first  taking  a  fancy  to  the  law  —  to  learn  it,  that  I  might  evade  it ;  suppose 
all  this.  I  've  studied  the  law,  learned  it,  and  become  a  lawyer  and  Trib 
une.  Haven't  I  risen,  though?  Once  a  rough,  indulging  in  bar-room 
fights,  charged  with  crime,  but  proved  (?)  innocent  —  and  now  a  man  of 
authority,  learned  in  the  law,  and  occupying  the  proud  and  potent  position 
of  Tribune !  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

Mr.  Bilman  lay  back  in  his  arm-chair,  hoisted  his  feet  up  on  the  table, 
extended  his  arms  and  his  whole  burly  form,  and  took  a  good  laugh.  Not 
a  loud,  free  laugh,  such  as  honest  men  indulge  in  when  they  are  amused, 
but  a  low,  chuckling,  strangling,  quivering  laugh,  that  was  peculiar  to  the 
potent  Tribune.  Then  he  got  up,  paced  the  floor,  kicking  a  chair  out  of 
his  way,  and  knocking  it  over;  and  presently  began  talking  to  himself 
again. 

Now,  the  gentleman  who  was  at  that  time  the  District-Attor 
ney  of  the  county  (and  city)  of  Philadelphia  seems  to  have 
thought,  when  he  read  this  description  of  a  "character,"  that 
it  referred  to  him  —  not,  be  it  remembered,  because  he  was  any 
such  a  wretch,  or  any  such  a  fiendish-looking  man  as  "Mr. 
Bilman ' '  was  represented  to  be,  but  because  the  name  sounded 
so  much  like  his  own.  This  gentleman  was  Mr.  William  B. 
Mann,  andliis  name  having  been  familiar  in  political  circles  of 
Philadelphia  for  years,  he  was  often  styled  "Bill  Mann,"  for 
short.  The  name  "  Bilman  "  — a  name  I  have  found  in  more 
than  one  city  directory,  by  the  way  —  sounded  so  much  like 


A   NOTED   LIBEL   SUIT.  245 

the  familiar  title  of  "  Bill  Mann  "  that  he  concluded  he  would 
be  justifiable  in  instituting  proceedings  for  libel  against  —  not 
the  writer  of  the  story,  but  one  of  the  owners  of  the  paper  in 
which  it  was  published.  This  unfortunate  gentleman  was  Mr. 
Wm.  Meeser,  who  happened  to  be  politically  opposed  to  Mr. 
Mann,  and  who  had  more  than  once  severely  criticised  his 
official  conduct.  ' 

The  first  installment  of  the  story,  embracing  the  extract 
already  given,  and  a  scene  or  two  in  which  "  William  Bilman  " 
figured  as  a  very  bad  man,  was  published  in  the  Mercury  one 
Sunday  morning,  and  early  on  Monday  morning  Mr.  Meeser 
was  waited  upon  by  a  dreadful  constable  with  a  warrant  author 
izing  the  latter  to  take  the  former's  "body."  Although  ap 
palled  at  the  thought  of  assuming  the  attitude  of  a  mere  "body," 
as  considered  outside  of  the  principles  of  life  and  individuality, 
Mr.  Meeser  readily  accompanied  the  official,  (who  informed 
him  that  he  might  as  well  "go  quietly,  you  know,")  and  was 
ushered  into  the  awful  presence  of  an  alderman.  The  District- 
Attorney  was  present,  and  having  been  duly  sworn,  he  deposed 
substantially  (I  write  only  from  memory)  that  his  name  was 
William  B.  Mann  ;  that  he  believed  himself  to  have  been  libeled 
by  Wm.  Meeser ;  that  he  fully  believed  that  the  character  of 
"Bilman"  was  "meant  for  him  ;"  that  it  held  him  up  to 
ridicule  and  contempt ;  that  he  was  not  aware  of  being  so  bad 
a  man  as  painted  in  the  "  libelous  "  article;  that  he  had  not 
"studied  law  to  learn  how  to  evade  it,"  but  had  done  so  "at 
the  instance  of  a  dear  father ; ' '  and  he  prayed  that  the  law 
might  "take  its  course." 

I  was  not  present,  nor  in  the  city,  at  the  time,  but  I  think 
Mr.  Meeser  waived  a  hearing,  and  entered  bail ;  and  so  the 
case  was  brought  before  the  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions  with  a 
promptness  that  did  great  credit  to  those  whose  duty  it  was  to 

21* 


246  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

prosecute  offenders  against  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth. 
The  publisher  of  the  "libel"  was  arraigned  as  a  "criminal," 
while  the  writer,  enjoying  delicious  immunity  from  the  law's 
"  meshes,"  figured  only  as  a  witness ;  which,  allowing  the  story 
to  have  been  libelous,  wears  about  the  same  aspect  of  a  fitness 
of  things  as  would  appear  in  a  case  where  a  man  is  prosecuted 
for  having  the  misfortune  to  get  robbed  and  the  thief,  unmo 
lested,  is  the  principal  witness  in  the  case. 

With  commendable  delicacy,  Mr.  Mann  refrained  from  per 
sonally  conducting  the  case  for  the  Commonwealth,  as  he  might 
have  done  in  his  official  capacity,  and  the  prosecution  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Hon.  Benjamin  H.  Brewster,  at  that  time  Attor 
ney-General  of  Pennsylvania,  and  one  of  the  ablest  of  Philadel 
phia  lawyers,  and  Hon.  Thomas  Bradford  Dwight,  then  Assistant 
District-Attorney.  The  defense  was  intrusted  by  Mr.  Meeser 
to  Messrs.  I.  Newton  Brown  and  John  A.  Clark,  both  able 
lawyers.  The  judge,  who  presided  over  the  case  with  equit 
able  discrimination,  was  Hon.  F.  Carroll  Brewster. 

Poor  Bill  Meeser  !  He  was  brought  into  the  crowded  court 
room  like  a  criminal,  although  graciously  allowed  the  privilege 
of  sitting  at  a  table  by  the  side  of  his  counsel,  instead  of  being 
placed  in  the  iron-barred  dock, —  for  even  the  counsel  for  the 
prosecution  did  not  deem  him  so  desperate  a  character  as  to  be 
likely  to  attempt  to  escape,  by  bounding  away  over  the  heads 
of  the  dense  masses  of  spectators  and  jumping  out  the  window, 
—  yes,  brought  in  to  be  "  tried  "  for  a  "  crime,"  which,  if  com 
mitted  at  all,  was  committed  by  me  ! 

The  trial  lasted  three  or  four  days,  and  attracted  as  much  at 
tention  as  a  first-class  murder  case.  The  great  interest  taken  in 
the  case  by  the  public  was  due  partly  to  the  prominence  of  the 
principal  parties,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  it  was  understood 
to  be  largely  permeated  by  the  political  element ;  so,  the  court 
room  was  daily  little  less  than  packed. 


A   NOTED   LIBEL   SUIT.  247 

After  the  usual  difficulties  in  securing  an  impartial  jury,  suc 
cess  finally  attending  the  efforts  to  do  so,  and  after  the  custom 
ary  presentations  of  the  case,  various  witnesses  were  examined, 
including  some  "big  guns,"  such  as  ex-Governor  Curtin,  who 
was  called  to  testify  with  reference  to  Mr.  Mann's  commission 
as  colonel  of  a  Pennsylvania  regiment  which  he  had  led  to  the 
field  early  in  the  war.  'Among  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution 
there  were  probably  thirty  or  forty  persons, —  some  of  them 
well-known  lawyers,  who  swore  that  they  had  read  the  opening 
chapters  of  the  story  in  the  Mercury,  and  "  thought,"  or  "  be 
lieved,"  that  the  character  of  "Hon.  William  Bilman  "  was 
intended  for  Mr.  Mann.  One  gentleman  of  the  legal  pro 
fession  went  so  far  as  to  say,  on  oath,  that  he  was  "certain  of 
it !  "  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  the  only  person  in  the 
court-room  besides  the  writer  of  the  story  who  was  "certain  " 
as  to  what  was  in  that  writer's  thoughts  when  he  conceived  and 
portrayed  the  character  of  "  Hon.  William  Bilman." 

The  defense  had  but  few  witnesses,  as  Mr.  Meeser  and  his 
counsel  had  from  the  beginning  disclaimed  any  allusion,  in  my 
fictitious  story,  to  Mr.  William  B.  Mann.  The  principal  wit 
ness  for  the  defense  was  the  writer  of  the  story  (and  of  this 
volume).  There  was  some  bickering  as  to  how  he  should  be 
qualified  as  a  witness,  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  at  first 
insisting  on  his  "  taking  the  book,"  and  he  declining  to  do  so, 
for  reasons  that  I  think  will  be  guessed  by  any  intelligent  per 
son  who  has  read  the  chapter  of  this  work  entitled  "  The  Reli 
gion  of  Editors."  This  important  witness,  having  finally 
qualified  by  affirmation,  stated,  with  a  frankness  and  candor 
that  ought  to  have  moved  even  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution 
to  tears,  that  the  character  of  "Hon.  William  Bilman"  was 
purely  fictitious;  that  it  certainly  was  not  "meant  for  Mr. 
Mann ; ' '  that  Mr.  Meeser  had  not  instructed  him  to  libel  Mr. 


248  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Mann ;  that  there  was  no  collusion  between  the  witness  and 
Mr.  Meeser  to  libel  Mr.  Mann,  or  any  other  man ;  no  hint  from 
Mr.  Meeser  to  the  witness,  "  no  ambiguous  giving  out  of  note," 
by  which  the  witness  might  have  understood  or  suspected  that 
Mr.  Meeser  desired  him  to  libel  Mr.  Mann ;  that  at  the  time 
of  the  writing  the  witness  had  never  even  seen  Mr.  Mann,  that 
he  was  aware  of;  that  the  story  was  written  over  four  hundred 
miles  from  Philadelphia,  and  sent  by  mail  to  the  Mercury ; 
that  Mr.  Meeser  was  in  the  habit  of  reposing  great  confidence 
in  the  writer,  and  of  publishing  his  stories  without  even  reading 
them  (so  far  as  the  writer  knew),  or  knowing  what  imaginary 
characters  or  scenes  were  described  in  them. 

The  witness  was  then  cross-examined  two  hours  by  the 
Attorney-General,  who  probably  knew  how  to  cross-examine  a 
witness,  if  any  one  ever  did ;  but  this  deep  and  searching  cross- 
examination,  while  it  developed  the  fact  that  several  eminent  (?) 
lawyers  present  did  not  know  the  meaning  in  Roman  history, 
or  even  the  proper  pronunciation,  of  the  word  "  Tribune,"  left 
his  testimony  standing  like  a  rock  ! 

Nevertheless,  Attorney-General  Brewster,  in  his  summing  up, 
delicately  hinted  that  the  writer  ( I !  )  might  have  committed 
perjury  ;  and  even  the  judge  himself,  in  his  charge  to  the  jury, 
alluded  very  tenderly  to  the  extraordinary  testimony  of  the 
writer.  Worse  still,  one  of  the  daily  papers  afterward  (un 
kindly,  I  think)  spoke  of  the  "  remarkable  statements"  of  the 
writer  of  the  story  in  the  Mercury,  adding  :  "  This  gentleman, 
we  believe,  belongs  in  Fayette  County,  and  we  advise  him  to 
return  thither  as  soon  as  possible,  unless  he  has  the  cuticle  of  a 
rhinoceros."  This  merely  meant  that  it  looked  very  much  as 
though  the  said  writer  ( I  !  )  had  sworn  to  a  few  lies. 

I  must  confess  that  I  was  not  blessed  with  the  "  cuticle  of  a 
rhinoceros,"  but,  nevertheless,  my  departure  from  Philadelphia 


A   NOTED   LIBEL   SUIT.  249 

became  no  early  event.  I  have  spent  most  of  my  time  there 
since,  except  when  traveling,  and  expect  to  remain  there  most 
of  my  time  until  unavoidable  circumstances  render  it  advisable 
to  go  and  j et  buried. 

I  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  there  were  some  coincident 
features  of  this  matter  that  might  well  engender  a  suspicion 
that  the  character  of  "Hon.  William  Bilman "  was  at  least 
"drawn  from"  Ae  then  District-Attorney.  When  I  came  to 
see  him  in  the  court-room,  where  I  saw  his  face  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  I  did  think  there  was  a  peculiar  expression  about  the 
eyebrows, — induced,  no  doubt,  by  excessive  mental  application, 
as  in  the  case  of  Blackstone,  —  a  sort  of  perpetual  frown,  that 
might  reasonably  have  been  compared  with  the  scowl  on  the  face 
of  the  mythical  "Bilman."  But  how  many  people  have  this 
same  contraction  of  the  brows ! 

Regarding  the  name,  "Bilman,"  which  many  thoughtless 
people  looked  upon  as  prima  facie  evidence  ihat  the  character 
was  meant  for  William  B.  Mann,  I  have  to  say  that  one  mo 
ment's  intelligent  consideration  ought  to  show  it  to  be  evidence 
against  such  a  theory,  rather  than  in  favor  of  it.  Why?  There 
is  a  similarity  of  sound  and  of  orthography ;  but  scrutinize  it 
more  closely.  Here  we  have  in  the  name  of  the  character,  first 
the  whole  Christian  name  of  "William;  "  then  in  the  first  syl 
lable  of  the  surname  we  have  that  name  repeated  in  the  familiar 
abbreviation  of  "Bil" — with  but  one  "1,"  mark  you;  and 
thus,  if  meant  for  Mr.  Mann,  the  tautology  would  have  been  as 
stupid  as  that  in  "  Peter  Pete  Smith  "  or  "  James  Jim  Jones," 
the  real  names  being  Peter  Smith  and  James  Jones,  and  would 
have  done  little  credit  to  the  ingenuity  of  the  writer. 

There  "was  another  coincidence,  striking  at  first  view,  but 
utterly  set  aside,  as  evidence,  by  a  careful  analysis.  "The 
Hon.  William  Bilman  "  was  represented  as  having  lost  a  finger 


250  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

of  the  right  hand,  it  having  been  "  chewed  off  in  a  quiet  bar 
room  fight  "  — a  finger  "  between  the  index  and  little  fingers." 
This  was  merely  a  device  of  the  fiction-writer  to  allow  the  "an 
noying  fly  "  to  escape,  and  so  to  present  an  example  of  the 
petty  malevolence  of  the  imaginary  character,  "Bilman,"  and 
at  the  same  time  to  give  him  an  opportunity  to  begin  his  soliloquy. 
Well,  District-Attorney  Mann  'had  lost  a  finger  of  the  right  hand, 
by  a  gunning  accident,  I  think,  but  it  was  the  index  finger  itself, 
and  not  "  a  finger  between  the  index  and  little  fingers."  This 
fact,  it  seems  to  me,  while  at  first  suggestive  of  a  mental  associ 
ation,  ought  to  lead  any  sensible  person,  after  a  deliberate  anal 
ysis,  to  the  conclusion  that,  of  all  men  living,  Mr.  Mann  was 
the  least  likely  to  have  been  referred  to  in  the  portrayal  of  the 
character  of  "Hon.  William  Bilman." 

I  know  a  gentleman  who  lost  an  arm  in  the  recent  civil  war. 
There  was  a  time  when  I  did  not  know  him  —  had  never  seen 
him  —  had  never  heard  of  him  —  when  I  wrote  a  novel  in  which 
was  a  character  described  as  having  lost  an  arm  in  the  war.  The 
gentleman  having  read  it  years  afterward,  one  day  said  to  me : 

"  If  you  had  known  me  when  you  wrote  that  story,  I  could  have 
sworn  that  you  intended  that  character  for  me. ' ' 

It  was  like  him ;  it  described  his  complexion  ;  the  color  of 
his  eyes ;  the  color  of  his  hair ;  the  shape  of  his  nose ;  his  size ; 
his  gait,  which  was  peculiar ;  mentioned  which  arm  he  lost  (the 
left) ;  and  even  mentioned  a  scar  over  the  right  eye,  exactly 
such  a  scar  as  this  real,  living  one-armed  gentleman  had  over 
his  right  eye  —  the  result  of  an  accident  in  youth ;  yet  he  knows, 
and  I  know,  that  I  had  never  seen  him  or  heard  of  him  when  I 
wrote  the  story.  When  he  made  the  remark  to  me,  I  pondered 
thus :  "  How  many  one-armed  men,  with  just  such  complexion, 
just  such  eyes,  just  such  hair,  there  may  be  in  the  world ;  and 
if  I  had  made  the  character  a  bad  one,  how  many  libel  suits  I 
and  my  publishers  might  have  had  on  our  hands !  " 


A   NOTED  LIBEL   SUIT.  2$  I 

To  return  to  the  "Bilman"  libel  suit:  The  jury  —  an  un 
usually  "  intelligent  "  one  —  did  not  take  the  same  view  of  the 
case  which  I  have  presented  here,  and  after  half-an-hour's  de 
liberation,  notwithstanding  the  very  direct  and  emphatic  testi 
mony  of  the  writer  (me  !)  came  in  with  a  verdict  of —  "  guilty." 
A  motion  for  a  new  trial  was  made,  but,  after  "due  consider 
ation,"  refused,  and  the  Honorable  Court  "sentenced"  Wm. 
Meeser,  —  the  penalty  fixed  upon  being  a  fine  of  five  hundred 
dollars  and  nine  months'  imprisonment  in  the  county  prison. 
In  accordance  with  this  sentence,  he  was  "incarcerated"  in 
Moyamensing  prison,  and  remained  there  for  a  period  of  six 
weeks,  when  Governor  Geary  exercised  the  "executive  clem 
ency,"  to  the  extent  of  releasing  him  and  remitting  the  fine. 
The  affair  was  not  without  important  results,  whether  for  the 
public  good  or  not  it  is  not  my  province  here  to  say.  Speedily 
following  it,  there  arose  some  feeling  against  Mr.  Mann  in  his 
own  party,  and  he  failed,  at  the  next  county  convention,  to  re 
ceive  a  renomination  for  the  office  he  had  held  many  years,  and 
at  the  ensuing  general  election  a  talented  legal  gentleman  of  the 
opposite  party,  Mr.  Furman  Sheppard,  was  chosen  to  succeed 
him  as  District-Attorney. 

Now,  by  the  conviction  of  Mr.  Meeser,  two  excellent  persons 
were  placed  in  an  unpleasant  position ;  namely,  Mr.  Meeser 
himself  and  the  writer  of  that  "libel,"  — the  latter  of  whom, 
unfortunately,  had  neglected  to  provide  himself  with  the 
"cuticle  of  a  rhinoceros."  Indeed,  I  felt  it  keenly  when  I 
found  that  my  testimony  was  utterly  ignored,  and  when  some 
of  my  best  friends  —  friends  who  had  reason  to  know  that  my 
testimony  was  true  —  rallied  me  in  a  good-humored  way  with 
such  remarks  as,  "  They  say  you  're  a  pretty  hard  swearer."  I 
treated  the  matter  lightly,  but  I  was  keenly  sensible  of  the  false 
position  in  which  I  had  been  placed,  through  no  fault  of  mine ; 


252  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

certainly  not  through  the  shadow  of  a  deviation  from  "the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth." 

I  had  testified  that  I  did  not  know  the  District-Attorney. 
But  people  would  say:  "Incredible.  Everybody  knows  Bill 
Mann."  That  is,  people  who  did  not  know  me.  Those  who 
did,  knew  that  at  that  time  I  had  not  lived  long  in  Philadel 
phia,  and  that  my  knowledge  of  local  politics  and  local  poli 
ticians  was  very  circumscribed.  Why,  it  transpired  in  the 
course  of  Mr.  Mann's  own  testimony  that  he  and  Mr.  Meesor 
were  personally  unknown  to  each  other,  and  that  he  "would 
not  have  known  him  if  he  had  met  him  in  the  street !  "  Yet 
both  had  lived  many  years  in  Philadelphia. 

The  finger  business  I  have  already  disposed  of  in  a  way  that 
must  be  very  clear  to  any  intellectual  mind ;  and  now  let  me 
say,  with  all  the  sincerity  that  is  in  my  nature,  that  the  proposi 
tion  that  the  fictitious  character  of  "Hon.  William  Bilman  " 
could  have  been  intended  to  "mean  William  B.  Mann,"  or 
any  other  particular  person,  living  or  dead,  appears  to  me  silly 
and  ridiculous  !  If  the  "  character  "  had  been  like  him ;  if  the 
writer  had  known  him  well,  and  had  actually  drawn  the  char 
acter  with  William  B.  Mann  in  his  mind's  eye;  if  he  had 
described  him  accurately,  I  am  impressed  with  the  belief  that 
it  still  would  not  have  been  a  libel,  provided  that  the  writer 
did  not  mention  the  name  or  position  of  the  then  District- 
Attorney,  and  did  not  mean  to  be  understood  as  intending  the 
"character"  for  Mr.  Mann,  or  implying  that  he  actually  did 
the  disreputable  acts  which  the  "character"  was  represented 
as  doing.  I  believe  that  all  writers  of  fiction  will  see  this  so 
clearly  at  the  first  glance  as  to  pronounce  an  opposite  theory 
worthy  of  being  sincerely  entertained  by  no  one  of  keen  per 
ceptions. 

One  of  Dickens' s  most  famous  characters  is  "Micawber," 


A   NOTED  LIBEL   SUIT.  2$  3 

the  man  who  "waited  for  something  to  turn  up."  It  is  said 
that  the  great  novelist  "drew  the  character  from  his  own 
father,"  who  was  precisely  such  a  character,  who  was  just  such 
an  improvident  man  as  the  shrimp-eating  "Micawber."  The 
very  name  would  favor  this  theory,  because  "Micawber," 
unless  very  distinctly  spoken,  sounds  much  like  "  my  father;  " 
yet  imagine  Mr.  John  Dickens  preferring  a  charge  of  libel 
against  his  distinguished  son  Charles,  or  against  the  publishers 
of  "  David  Copperfield  !  "  Imagine  any  one  with  an  intellect 
so  innnitesimally  little  above  that  of  the  African  gorilla  that  he 
could  believe  that,  in  describing  the  eccentric  feats  of  "  Micaw- 
ber,"  Dickens  meant,  or  ever  dreamed  of  being  understood  as 
meaning,  that  his  father,  the  improvident  John,  did  just  those 
things  ! 

One  more  important  point  in  this  case  should  not  be  over 
looked.  It  is  said  that  "everything  is  fair  in  war,"  and 
looking  upon  a  suit  in  court  as  a  species  of  war,  the  conduct  of 
the  Assistant  District-Attorney  was  undoubtedly  fair  in  this 
case,  as  viewed  in  the  light  of  that  adage.  In  libel  suits  the 
alleged  libelous  article  is  read  in  open  court,  and  it  therefore 
became  the  province  of  Mr.  Dwight  to  stand  up  with  a  copy 
of  the  Mercury  in  his  hand  and  read  aloud  the  two  opening 
chapters  of  my  story  —  much,  I  trust,  to  the  edification  of  the 
judge  and  jury.  The  name  of  this  fictitious  character,  "Mr. 
Bilman,"  frequently  occurred  in  these  chapters,  and  Mr. 
Dwight,  instead  of  pronouncing  the  name  as  it  was  written  and 
printed,  pronounced  it  in  every  case,  very  distinctly,  "  Mr. 
Bill  Mann."  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  powerful  impres 
sion  was  thus  made  on  the  minds  of  the  "intelligent"  jury, 
who  only  heard  the  "libelous  "  article  read,  and  did  not  see  it 
"  in  print  "  ?  Witnesses  were  then  introduced  who  swore,  and 
very  truthfully,  that  Mr.  Mann  was  generally  known  as  "Bill 


254  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Mann;"  and  here  to  the  jury  seemed  to  be  a  "plain  case,"  in 
which  the  complainant's  name  was  undisguisedly  mentioned.  If 
the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  believed  they  had  a  clear  and  just 
case  against  Mr.  Meeser,  does  it  seem  probable  that  they  would 
have  thought  it  necessary  to  resort  to  such  an  artifice  for  making 
an  impression  on  the  minds  of  the  jury  ?  This  is  one  of  those 
questions  sometimes  asked  never  to  be  satisfactorily  answered. 

No  one  knows  better  than  I  do  that  William  Meeser  was  not 
guilty  of  a  crime.  If  any  one  was,  it  was  myself.  His  con 
viction,  which  I  regard  as  an  unfortunate  mistake,  was  due 
partly  to  the  fact  that  fiction-writing  (I  trust  this  will  not  be 
regarded  as  such)  was  imperfectly  understood  by  the  jury, 
which  caused  them  to  look  upon  the  writer's  testimony  as 
"extraordinary  statements,"  partly  to  the  unjust  laws  relating 
to  libels.  In  another  chapter,  I  have  shown  how  a  journalist 
may  be  annoyed  and  even  blackmailed  by  unprincipled  adven 
turers,  who  may  at  any  time  take  advantage  of  too-rigorous 
libel  laws  to  rob  an  editor ;  but  it  does  seem  to  me  a  great 
wrong  that  the  act  of  libel  should  be  legally  rated  as  a  crime, — 
that  the  owner  of  a  newspaper  may  be  arrested,  tried  in  the 
criminal  courts  and  sent  to  prison  along  with  thieves,  and 
forgers,  and  murderers,  because  an  employe,  however  inadvert 
ently,  has  written  and  published  in  his  paper  an  incorrect 
statement  affecting  the  reputation  of  some  obscure  individual. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  journalists  ought  to 
be  allowed  to  say  what  they  please  about  any  and  every  body, 
whether  true  or  false.  A  wholesome  check  is  necessary ;  but  it 
ought  not  to  extend  beyond  pecuniary  responsibility.  The 
publisher  of  a  paper  should  be  liable  to  damages,  if  he  should 
allow  his  paper  to  injure  any  one ;  and  any  editor  or  publisher 
who  owns  a  paper  of  sufficient  circulation  and  influence  to  be 
able  seriously  to  damage  any  one's  reputation  will  always  be 


THE   GALLOWS. 

found  possessing  the  means  necessary  for  indemnity.  It  is  no 
more  right  to  imprison  the  owner  of  a  paper  because  one  of  his 
employed  editors  writes  and  publishes  an  untruth  about  some 
body  than  it  would  be  right  to  imprison  the  proprietor  of  a 
grocery-store  because  the  man  he  employs  to  drive  his  wagon 
runs  over  and  injures  some  one  in  the  street.  He  might 
properly  be  called  upon  to  pay  damages  because  of  the  care 
lessness  of  his  employe,  but  certainly  he  would  be  no  criminal. 
So,  while  I  repeat  that  the  libel  laws  were  too  rigorous,  and 
that  the  jury  probably  had  not  so  clear  a  conception  of  the  case 
against  Mr.  Meeser  as  almost  any  person  will  have  after  having 
perused  this  chapter,  I  must  say  that  it  is  not  for  me,  nor  has 
it  been  my  purpose,  to  question  the  sincerity  and  fairness  of 
the  judge  or  jury,  or  even  the  purity  of  the  motives  of  the  able 
legal  gentleman  who  saw  fit  to  make  the  complaint  leading  to 
the  prosecution  of  Mr.  Meeser. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

THE    GALLOWS. 

IT  is  a  prerogative  of  the  journalist  to  see  almost  every  phase 
of  human  life,  and  to  witness  many  strange  things  from 
which  the  general  public  is  shut  out.  Among  these  things  are 
executions  on  the  gallows.  It  has  happened  in  the  course  of 
my  own  experience  that  I  have  seen  but  one  man  hanged,  and 
on  that  occasion  I  did  so  as  a  duty,  and  not  through  "morbid 
curiosity."  The  hanging  of  a  murderer  is  no  very  pleasing 
sight,  nor  is  it  a  sight  for  the  reporter  to  shrink  from.  Indeed, 
I  look  upon  it  with  the  same  indifference  I  should  feel  if  my 


256  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

duties  took  me  to  a  slaughter-house,  and  I  should  have  to 
observe  and  write  up  the  manner  of  killing  a  bullock  or  hog. 

There  are  well-meaning  philanthropists  who  believe  in  the 
abolishment  of  capital  punishment,  and  I  agree  with  them  that  it 
ought  to  be  abolished  —  provided  capital  crime  is  abolished  first. 
I  think  that  just  as  soon  as  the  crime  of  murder  becomes  obsolete 
we  ought  to  —  and  will  —  stop  hanging  murderers.  The  well- 
meaning  philanthropists  alluded  to  seem  to  expend  all  their 
sympathy  on  the  poor  unfortunate  murderer,  seldom  wasting  a 
thought  on  the  victim  who  is  struck  down  in  the  street,  or 
butchered  in  his  bed,  or  on  the  widow  and  orphans  upon  whom 
the  assassin  has  heaped  at  once  an  oppressing  weight  of  grief 
and  destitution.  But  notwithstanding  all  that  good  men  have 
said  against  capital  punishment,  and  after  giving  the  matter 
careful  thought,  I  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  we 
ought  to  continue  killing  murderers  as  long  as  they  continue  to 
kill  innocent  people.  I  don't  care  how — whether  by  hanging, 
decapitating  or  shooting ;  but  let  us  kill  them,  and  kill  them 
as  soon  as  possible,  after  they  have  been  proved,  beyond  all 
doubt,  guilty.  This,  not  in  any  spirit  of  vengeance  ("ven 
geance  is  mine ;  I  will  repay,"  saith  the  Lord),  but  simply  as  a 
measure  of  self-protection — just  as  we  kill  the  rattlesnake.  We 
do  not  kill  that  reptile  in  any  spirit  of  vindictiveness;  we  do 
not  "hate  "  it,  as  we  have  no  reason  to  do  so;  but  we  know 
that  it  has  been  "created"  with  poisonous  fangs,  and  with  a 
disposition  to  use  them,  and  (grant  that  it  cannot  resist  the 
temptation  to  bite)  considerations  of  the  safety  of  the  commu 
nities  in  which  the  venomous  creature  is  found  demand  its 
destruction  whenever  possible.  The  object  is,  not  to  torture 
even  the  rattlesnake,  but  to  kill  it  as  quickly  and  painlessly 
as  possible  —  to  take  the  most  direct  measures  of  effectually 
destroying  its  power  to  do  harm. 


THE   GALLOWS. 

The  person  whom  I,  in  the  capacity  of  a  reporter,  saw  hanged, 
was  "  a  man  in  years."  He  had  reached  the  age  of  sixty,  and 
the  peculiar  atrocity  of  the  crime  of  which  he  paid  the  penalty 
—  his  victim  being  a  girl  of  thirteen  —  showed  him  to  be  a  man 
of  almost  incredible  depravity.  He  had  steadfastly  persisted  that 
he  was  innocent  until  within  a  short  time  of  the  day  fixed  for 
the  execution  of  his  sentence ;  then,  having  abandoned  all  hope 
of  the  "  executive  clemency,"  he  "  made  his  peace  with  God," 
although  he  had  prayed  continually  ever  since  his  conviction, 
and  at  the  same  time  made  a  confession  of  the  crime  of  which 
he  stood  convicted,  and  a  long  list  of  other  crimes  —  including 
a  murder  of  which  he  had  never  been  charged  —  extending 
over  a  series  of  years ;  crimes  he  had  committed  while  daily 
putting  on  a  show  of  piety,  and  crimes  of  which  he  had  never 
been  even  suspected.  This  confession,  if  there  had  been  any 
doubt  of  his  guilt  in  the  case  of  the  murder  of  which  he  was 
convicted  —  but  there  was  not  —  would  have  entirely  removed 
such  doubt.  [In  this  connection  I  am  reminded  that  a  mur 
derer  was  hanged  in  New  York  not  many  years  ago,  after  a 
powerful  pressure  of  money  and  influence  had  been  brought  to 
bear  to  save  him  ;  and  after  the  execution  it  transpired  that  the 
same  person  had  once  before  committed  a  wanton  murder  and 
been  saved  from  the  just  penalty  by  a  near  relative,  who 
possessed  great  wealth  and  some  political  influence.] 

At  the  entrance  of  the  State  Prison,  within  whose  walls  the 
legal  tragedy  was  to  be  enacted,  I  found  the  Deputy- Warden, 
whom  I  knew,  and  I  handed  him  the  pass  I  had  received  from 
the  High  Sheriff,  saying: 

"  I  suppose  that  is  to  be  given  up  here?  " 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "and  it  would  be  hard  for  a  stranger  to 
get  in  without  one." 

"  Have  there  been  many  applications  for  admission  ?  " 
22*  R 


2$ 8  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

"  Over  two  thousand." 

"  How  many  will  there  be  admitted  ?  " 

"  Only  about  thirty-five,  including  the  Sheriff's  jury,  regular 
officials  and  members  of  the  press. ' ' 

"  How  is  the  old  man  this  morning?  " 

"  Pretty  nervous." 

"  Did  he  eat  any  breakfast?  " 

"Yes,  a  couple  of  boiled  eggs,  a  baked  potato  or  two,  and 
some  bread  and  butter,  with  a  cup  of  coffee.  He  really  eat 
with  some  appetite." 

"  He  '11  be  hanged  at  the  time  you  mentioned  yesterday?  " 

' 'Yes;  eleven  o'clock,  or  very  soon  after." 

It  was  now  half-past  ten.  I  entered  the  door,  which  was 
closed  and  secured  behind  me,  and  being  familiar  with  the 
interior  of  the  prison,  where  my  duties  had  called  me  more  than 
once  before,  I  ascended  a  flight  of  steps,  turned  to  the  right  and 
entered  a  small  room  in  which  visitors  were  received.  When  I 
stood  in  this  room  the  Warden's  office  was  on  my  right ;  on  my 
left  a  door  led  into  the  guard-room,  a  spacious  and  well-lighted 
apartment  from  whose  iron-barred  windows  surveillance  could 
be  kept  over  the  prison-yard,  and  from  which  every  door  and 
window  in  the  workshops  could  be  seen.  Several  stout  attend 
ants  were  in  this  room,  and  a  dozen  loaded  muskets  standing 
in  a  rack  near  them,  suggested  that  they  were  prepared  to  quell 
a  possible  insurrection  by  rigorous  measures. 

After  merely  glancing  into  the  guard-room,  I  opened  the 
door  of  the  Warden's  office,  and  went  in.  He  was  a  gray- 
haired  little  man,  with  as  kind  a  heart  as  ever  beat  anywhere  in 
the  State,  and  through  a  period  of  many  years  he  had  managed 
hundreds  of  the  worst  of  men,  without  once  finding  it  neces 
sary  to  resort  to  the  use  of  those  frowning  muskets,  or  to  any 
other  very  harsh  measure.  Firm  as  he  was  kind  of  heart,  he 


THE   GALLOWS.  2 59 

"went  the  right  way  about  it,"  and  every  convict  under  his 
charge  learned  to  like  him  simultaneously  with  learning  that  he 
must  obey  him,  do  his  duty  and  submit  to  the  rules. 

The  old  Warden  was  clothed  in  black,  and  as  I  shook  hands 
with  him  he  looked  at  me  through  his  spectacles  with  an  ex 
pression  of  sadness  he  might  have  worn  if  he  had  just  "dressed 
up"  to  attend  the  funeral  of  a  lamented  person.  He  spoke  in 
a  low  tone,  and  there  was  a  general  air  of  "solemn  stillness  " 
in  the  rooms  that  reminded  me  of  a  funeral  occasion. 

"I  left  him  a  few  minutes  ago,"  he  said,  referring  to  the 
doomed  man,  who  had  been  in  his  charge  a  long  while,  "  and  I 
could  not  help  feeling  pretty  bad." 

"How  so,  Warden?" 

"Well,  he  said  to  me:  'God  bless  you,  Warden.  Wicked 
as  I  have  been,  you  have  always  treated  me  as  kindly  as  you 
could,  and  I  '11  think  of  you  with  gratitude  as  I  drop  from  the 
scaffold  ! '  I  tell  you,  Mr. ,  I  could  n't  help  feeling  bad !  " 

His  low  voice  quivered  slightly  as  he  said  this,  and  his  eyes 
had  that  peculiar  glistening  that  denotes  no  dearth  of  moisture. 

"How  did  he  rest  last  night?"  I  asked,  barely  above  a 
whisper. 

"  Very  well.  He  fell  asleep  just  at  midnight,  and  never  woke 
till  half-past  five  this  morning." 

"  Do  you  think  he  has  the  nerve  to  die  bravely?  " 

"  I  have  my  doubts,  although  I  have  done  all  I  can  to  cheer 
him  up.  I  spoke  to  him  this  morning  about  it,  and  told  him 
to  try  and  meet  his  fate  like  a  man ;  and  he  looked  up  at  me, 
with  the  tears  ready  to  start  from  his  eyes,  and  said  he  :  '  I  '11 
try  to;  but,  Warden,  you  know  it'll  be  a  pretty  hard  walk 
across  that  guard-room.'  I  think  so,  too." 

This  had  reference  to  the  location  of  the  gallows,  which  had 
been  erected  in  the  corridor  of  the  main  building,  the  platform 


260  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM 

on  a  level  with  the  floor  of  the  guard-room.  The  doomed  man 
was  in  the  hospital  awaiting  his  final  hour,  having  been  taken 
from  his  cell  and  placed  there  in  order  that  its  less  gloomy  sur 
roundings  might  have  as  good  an  influence  as  possible  upon  his 
nerves.  The  hospital  was  an  apartment  adjoining  the  guard 
room  at  the  end  opposite  to  that  at  which  the  scaffold  was 
erected. 

I  looked  around  me  and  saw  a  dozen  or  fifteen  people  I  knew, 
among  them  the  Sheriff.  Poor  fellow,  I  pitied  him,  for  he  had 
a  disagreeable  duty  to  perform.  He  came  over  to  me,  on  tip 
toe,  and  with  uncovered  head,  shook  hands  with  me,  and  the 
ordinary  greetings  were  exchanged  in  low  tones.  He  was  very 
pale. 

Others  —  members  of  the  press,  Sheriff's  jurymen,  the  prison 
physician,  an  official  or  two  —  were  gliding  about  as  noiselessly 
as  specters  in  the  Warden's  office,  the  reception-room,  and  the 
guard-room,  now  and  then  exchanging  a  word  or  two  in  whis 
pers.  There  seemed  to  be  in  everything  around  us,  in  the 
rooms,  the  walls,  the  very  air,  some  gloomy  sense  of  the  awful 
scene  upon  which  we  were  soon  to  look.  Death  itself  seemed 
hovering  over  the  prison-walls,  like  a  shadow,  sending  an  icy 
chill  through  rooms,  and  stairway  and  corridor. 

I  went  into  the  guard-room,  and  there  felt  the  same  cold  still 
ness  that  seemed  to  pervade  everything,  and  on  the  faces  of  the 
attendants  themselves  there  was  a  look  of  solemnity  such  as  they 
might  have  worn  if  the  great  Day  of  Judgment  had  just  dawned. 
I  stood  a  moment  by  one  of  the  well-guarded  windows,  looking 
out  over  the  prison-yard  toward  the  workshops,  through  whose 
long  rows  of  windows  I  could  see  the  convicts  at  work ;  and  I 
noticed  that  the  sky  was  slightly  clouded,  and  the  daylight  fell 
down  within  the  prison  walls  with  a  leaden  gloom. 

The  door  leading  from  the  guard-room  into  the  hospital 


THE  GALLOWS.  26 1 

opened,  and  a  man  and  woman  came  out,  passed  through  the 
reception-room  and  descended  the  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the 
iron  door  at  which  I  had  entered  the  prison-walls.  They  were 
the  son  and  daughter  of  the  doomed  man,  and  had  just  taken 
leave  of  him  forever  and  ever.  I  scarcely  noticed  him ;  but 
she  was  dressed  in  black,  and  was  crying.  This  was  an  im 
measurably  harder  sight  for  me  to  look  upon  than  the  hanging 
of  the  murderer.  I  caught  just  one  faint  glimpse  of  her  face 
through  the  folds  of  a  thick  black  vail ;  then  I  turned  and  again 
gazed  out  over  the  dull  prison -yard,  and  at  the  rows  of  windows 
in  the  walls  of  the  workshops. 

When  they  were  gone,  and  I  could  hear  their  quiet  footsteps 
upon  the  flight  of  steps  leading  out  of  those  sad  walls,  I  moved 
away  from  the  window,  with  my  face  turned  from  that  hospital 
door,  from  which  the  miserable  wretch  must  soon  be  led.  Be 
fore  me  was  an  open  door,  leading  to  the  corridor.  A  step  or 
two  brought  me  upon  its  threshold  and  immediately  before  me 
was  that  frightful  instrument  of  death  —  the  Gallows.  Its  plat 
form  was  a  dozen  feet  above  the  cold  stone  floor  of  the  corridor, 
with  its  rows  of  cells,  and  about  seven  feet  above  the  platform, 
supported  by  heavy  upright  timbers  on  either  side  of  the  struc 
ture  was  the  "beam,'*  from  which  the  horrible  noose  hung. 
The  rope  had  been  passed  over  a  pulley  fixed  in  a  mortise  in  the 
beam,  and  while  the  end  hanging  down  had  been  writhed  into 
a  "  hangman's  knot,"  the  other  end  was  made  fast  to  a  cleat  on 
the  upright  timber  on  the  right-hand  side,  the  length  having 
been  carefully  calculated  to  allow  the  proper  fall.  A  wooden 
railing  three  or  four  feet  high  surrounded  the  platform,  except 
that  an  open  space  was  left  where  the  prisoner  was  to  step  upon 
the  platform  when  he  should  pass  from  the  guard-room  door. 

In  the  center,  immediately  under  the  noose,  was  the  trap 
door.  It  was  of  thick  plank,  like  the  platform  itself,  about 


262  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

two  feet  square,  and  so  supported  exactly  on  a  level  with  the 
platform  that  one  might  scarcely  have  noticed  it  unless  he  had 
been  looking  for  it.  One  side  was  secured  to  the  platform  by 
heavy  iron  hinges,  while  the  other  rested  upon  the  end  of  an 
iron  bolt,  to  which  was  attached  a  contrivance  so  connected 
with  the  "spring,"  which  projected  above  the  platform,  that  a 
pressure  thereon  would  instantly  draw  the  bolt  and  let  the  trap 
fall.  Beneath,  a  cord  was  attached  to  a  staple  driven  into  the 
trap  near  where  it  was  supported  by  the  bolt,  and  this  run  over 
a  pulley  at  the  rear  of  the  scaffold  — that  side  toward  the  guard 
room —  and  a  weight  attached,  so  that  the  door  would  not 
swing  back  and  forth  after  being  released  from  that  fearful 
hatchway.  The  whole  structure  was  very  massive,  the  timbers 
being  as  heavy  as  would  be  used  in  framing  an  ordinary  cottage, 
and  all,  including  the  platform,  was  freshly  painted  a  bright 
blue.  It  was  but  a  step  from  the  guard-room  door  to  the  scaf 
fold,  there  being  between  them  a  space  of  about  two  feet, 
occupied  by  a  platform  from  which  ramified  stairways  and 
elevated  bridges  leading  to  the  various  tiers  of  cells  and  to  the 
stone  floor  of  the  corridor. 

One  by  one  the  remainder  of  the  spectators  arrived,  and, 
like  their  predecessors,  glided  about  as  noiselessly  as  specters, 
now  and  then  gathering  in  little  groups  about  the  Warden  or 
Sheriff,  asking  questions  in  low  tones  that  were  replied  to  in 
whispers.  It  was  a  strange  and  awful  silence  that  reigned  within 
those  gloomy  walls. 

Eleven  o'clock  began  to  draw  near,  and  eyes  wandered  fre 
quently  toward  the  hospital-door.  The  Sheriff  went  in  to  in 
form  the  doomed  man  that  his  time  was  at  hand,  and  that  he 
must  make  his  final  preparations  for  death.  He  came  out  pale 
and  nervous,  and  whispered  a  few  words  to  the  Warden. 

Again  the   door  opened,  and  the  Chaplain,  a  pale,  sickly- 


THE  G 'ALLOWS.  263 

looking  man,  came  out  and  whispered  to  the  Warden  and 
Sheriff.  He  had  been  praying  for  the  last  time  with  the  guilty 
wretch,  and  there  were  tears  in  his  eyes. 

The  Sheriff  made  a  sign  to  his  jury,  and  the  Warden  con 
ducted  them  to  the  door  at  the  scaffold,  and  pointed  into  the 
corridor.  They  then  filed  out,  descended  a  few  steps  to  the 
right,  and  instead  of  going  down  a  longer  flight  to  the  floor, 
they  walked  out  upon  a  bridge  that  was  on  a  level  with  the 
floors  of  the  second  tier  of  cells,  and  took  their  positions. 
The  members  of  the  press  and  a  few  other  spectators  then  filed 
through  the  door,  descended  to  the  stone  floor  and  ranged 
themselves  along  in  front  of  the  scaffold.  The  number  being 
so  limited,  it  was  easy  for  every  one  to  get  a  "desirable" 
position. 

I  stood  directly  in  front  of  the  gallows,  and  distant  from  it 
about  fifteen  feet.  Now  that  we  were  at  its  base,  and  looked 
up  at  it,  it  appeared  more  horrid  than  before.  If  I  had  seen  it 
without  knowing  its  purpose,  it  might  not  have  looked  par 
ticularly  impressive;  but,  knowing,  it  seemed  to  me  to  loom  up 
like  some  gigantic  thing  of  life,  some  destroying  monster, 
whose  impulses  were  fierce  and  pitiless.  The  very  timbers  had 
a  venomous  look,  and  I  half  fancied  them  contaminating  to  the 
touch;  the  railing  about  the  platform  suggested  to  my  mind  the 
coil  of  the  boa-constrictor,  closing  upon  and  crushing  its  victim ; 
the  beam,  with  the  noose  hanging  from  its  center,  seemed  to 
look  down  upon  the  little  party  of  grave  spectators  with  a  frown 
that  was  almost  human. 

The  silence  was  intensified.  Not  a  word  was  breathed  by 
the  waiting  spectators.  There  was  not  so  much  as  the  shuffling 
of  a  foot  upon  the  cold  stone  floor.  Breathing  itself  seemed 
for  awhile  suspended,  and  we  stood  there  like  a  group  of 
statuary. 


264  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

I  looked  up  and  beyond  the  scaffold ;  saw  two  prison-guards 
standing  by  the  guard-room  door ;  saw  the  heads  and  shoulders 
of  the  Sheriff  and  two  deputies ;  saw  them  all  looking  toward 
the  hospital-door,  which  was  not  quite  visible  from  where  we 
stand  ;  fancied  a  slight  sound  somewhere  above  us  and  beyond 
the  scaffold  ;  a  cold  breath  of  air  seemed  to  stir  through  the 
corridor,  and  I  felt  the  near  presence  of  the  tragedy.  My  eyes 
were  fixed  on  the  guard-room  door.  Before  me  yet  is  that 
breathless  scene  ;  the  statue-like  spectators ;  the  frowning  gal 
lows  ;  the  beam,  the  hideous  noose,  the  guard-room  door. 

I  saw  the  Sheriff  raise  his  right  hand ;  noticed  a  slight  move 
ment  among  the  group  of  five  at  the  guard-room  door ;  then, 
as  they  stood  on  either  side,  there  appeared  the  Warden  and 
Deputy- Warden,  and  between  them  —  a  face. 

Such  a  face  I  had  never  before  looked  upon.  I  had  seen 
death  in  almost  every  form ;  I  had  seen  the  ashen  and  distorted 
features  of  the  dead,  who  had  died  amid  pain  and  terror;  but 
never  a  face  like  that  of  the  man  who  found  himself  step 
ping  out  upon  that  frightful  scaffold  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck, 
killed,  and  so  to  pass  into  Eternity  ! 

The  face  was  clean-shaven,  according  to  the  prison  rules ;  it 
was  thin  and  cadaverous ;  it  was  wrinkled,  and  ashy  pale ;  the 
features  worked  and  writhed  into  hideous  contortions,  as  the 
wretched  man  struggled  with  his  inward  horror,  and  tried  to 
choke  down  his  emotions;  the  gray  eyes  had  turned  almost 
white;  the  lids  were  distended;  and  the  face  looked  around 
upon  the  assembled  men  on  the  bridge  and  on  the  stone  floor 
below  with  such  a  startled,  frightened  stare,  —  such  a  wild  ex 
pression  of  terror,  and  helplessness,  and  despair,  —  such  a  look 
of  shrinking  and  amazement,  especially  when  his  starting  eyes 
took  in  the  beam  and  noose,  —  that  it  required  nerve  to  look  on 
and  not  be  sickened  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  heart. 


THE  GALLOWS.  265 

The  Warden  formally  turned  over  his  prisoner  to  the  Sheriff, 
and  the  latter  walked  out  upon  the  scaffold,  followed  by  his  two 
deputies,  who  led  the  murderer  between  them,  His  wrists, 
crossing  each  other,  were  already  bound  together,  giving  him 
an  appearance  of  utter  helplessness,  and  his  knees  trembled  so 
violently  that  I  expected  to  see  them  give  way,  his  legs  double 
up  and  himself  fall  upon  the  platform,  a  quivering  mass  of 
human  terror.  But  he  stood,  half  supported  by  the  Sheriff's 
deputies,  while  the  latter  placed  his  feet  squarely  upon  the  center 
of  the  trap,  the  noose  dangling  at  his  right  ear. 

Following  him  came  the  Chaplain,  paler  than  ever,  and,  in 
the  goodness  of  his  heart,  he  whispered  a  last  word  of  hope  in 
the  ear  of  the  quaking  wretch,  then  retired  to  a  corner  of  the 
scaffold  near  the  guard-room  door.  There  he  placed  an  elbow 
upon  the  railing,  and  I  could  see  his  white  lips  moving. 

The  Warden,  Deputy- Warden  and  two  attendants  stood  at 
the  door. 

The  Sheriff's  deputies  bound  the  prisoner  firmly  at  the  ankles 
and  knees,  and  secured  his  elbows  close  to  his  sides  by  fasten 
ing  them  to  a  strap  which  they  passed  around  his  back  and 
buckled  tightly.  Then  one  of  them  drew  over  that  face,  and 
shut  out  from  those  staring  eyes  the  light  of  day  for  ever,  the 
"  black  cap  "  —  a  sack,  rather  than  a  cap,  as  it  was  half  as  large 
as  an  ordinary  pillow-case.  The  folds  of  this  dropped  down  to 
the  breast,  and  hid  the  face  —  that  picture  of  horror  —  from 
the  view  of  the  spectators.  Being  dressed  in  a  black  suit,  the 
figure  now  presented  a  somber  appearance,  indeed. 

Then  the  other  Sheriff's  deputy  adjusted  the  noose,  slightly  lift 
ing  the  pendent  folds  of  the  "  black  cap,"  so  that  the  cord  should 
press  upon  the  bare  neck.  At  its  touch  the  murderer  started, 
and  trembled  so  violently  that  I  thought  he  must  fall.  But  he 
did  not,  and  all  was  ready.  Once  more,  a  deputy  gently  placed 
23 


266  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

his  hand  on  the  prisoner's  shoulder,  to  put  him  in  the  exact 
position  desired^  then  withdrew  it ;  while  the  other  examined 
the  rope  to  see  that  all  was  clear,  and  that  it  would  rim  freely 
over  the  pulley  when  the  trap  should  be  sprung.  Then  they 
stepped  aside,  one  to  the  right  and  the  other  to  the  left,  and  he 
stood  alone,  confronting  Eternity.  He  had  not  uttered  a  word, 
except  to  say  in  a  tremulous  whisper,  while  they  were  pinioning 
him  :  "  Don't  tie  me  so  tight."  These  were  his  last  words. 

I  looked  at  a  clock  that  was  fixed  upon  the  wall  near  the 
scaffold.  It  was  four  minutes  past  eleven. 

The  Sheriff,  who  stood  by  the  front  railing,  near  the  spring, 
drew  from  his  pocket  the  death-warrant,  and  broke  the  silence 
by  reading  it  in  quivering  tones  that  went  rolling  along  with  a 
hollow  sound  through  the  stone-bound  corridor,  and  dying  away 
in  the  distance.  Slowly  he  read,  while  the  poor  wretch  stood 
helplessly  awaiting  his  fate ;  and  finally  —  it  was  eight  minutes 
past  eleven  —  came  the  words  : 

"  And  now,  I  command  you,  the  said ,  to  deliver  up  your 

body  to  me,  the  said  High  Sheriff  of  R County,  that  I  may 

execute  the  sentence  of  the  /aw." 

A  half-second  of  death-like  silence,  and  I  saw  the  Sheriff's 
right  foot  move.  It  was  pressed  upon  the  iron  spring. 

There  was  a  sharp  crash,  as  the  trap-door  swung  down  against 
a  "rest"  toward  the  rear  of  the  scaffold  intended  to  receive 
the  shock,  and  I  saw  a  black  figure  dart  down  beneath  the  plat 
form,  like  the  great  iron  weight  of  a  pile-driver.  But  it  did  not 
descend  to  the  floor.  It  stopped  suddenly  in  mid-air,  with  its 
head  just  below  the  platform,  swayed  to  and  fro  a  few  inches,  as 
a  sack  of  corn  suspended  by  a  rope  might  have  done,  then  was 
perfectly  motionless. 

The  knot  was  at  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  the  head,  covered 
with  the  black  cap,  drooped  forward  until  the  chin  rested  upon 


THE   GALLOWS.  26? 

the  breast.  The  neck  had  been  broken  ;  not  a  muscle  twitched  ; 
and  the  body  of  the  murderer  hung  as  inanimate  and  motion 
less  as  the  sack  of  corn  to  which  it  has  been  likened.  Sus 
pended  there  above  the  earth,  with  that  black  pall  over  the  dis 
torted  features,  it  was  the  very  personification  of  death. 

There  was  a  hush,  and  for  a  few  seconds  all  were  as  silent 
as  the  walls  themselves ;  then  the  prison  physician  and  an 
assistant  mounted  upon  chairs  upon  either  side  of  the 
pendent  figure  and  noted  the  pulsations  so  soon  to  cease  for 
ever.  The  pulse  continued  to  beat  perceptibly,  with  wild  fluc 
tuations,  for  a  period  of  seventeen  minutes,  the  physician,  watch 
in  hand,  announcing  its  condition  at  the  end  of  each  minute : 
"  Forty-eight  " —  "  Forty-five  "—  "  Forty-five  "—  "A  hundred 
and  thirteen  " —  "A  hundred  and  forty-two  " —  "  Eighty-one  " 

—  "Sixty-four" — and    so    on,   down   to — "Very  feeble" — 
"  Six  "—  "  Three  "—  "  Heart  fluttering  slightly  "—  then- 

"Dead." 

I  hurried  up  the  steps,  once  more  passed  the  platform  with  its 
open  hatchway,  glided  through  the  guard-room,  the  reception- 
room,  hurried  down  the  entry-stairs,  and  out  into  the  frosty 
February  air.  Crowds  of  curious  people  accosted  me  with, 
"Is  he  hung?"  "Is  he  dead?"  "  How  did  he  act  ?"  and  the 
like.  I  replied  with  a  word,  sprang  into  a  carriage  that  awaited 
me  and  was  whirled  away  with  the  speed  of  an  express  train. 

The  vehicle  stopped  in  front  of  the  office  door,  and  I  jumped 
out  upon  the  sidewalk  and  flew  up-stairs.  I  had  already  written 

—  and  it  had  been  put  in  type  —  a  skeleton  description  of  the 
hanging,  as  I  expected  it  to  be ;  I  quickly  made  a  few  altera 
tions  ;  put  in  a  few  additional  lines,  no  one  compositor  setting 
more  than  a  line;  it  was  hurried  together;  the  form  locked  up 
and  thrown  upon  the  press ;  and  in  five  minutes  more  the  news 
boys  were  screaming  in  the  street  : 


268  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

11  Here  's  your  Extra  !  All  about  the  execution  !  All  about 
the  confession  !  Horrible  crimes  !  ' ' 

And  so  our  paper,  giving  an  account  of  the  hanging  of  the 
murderer,  was  fluttering  in  the  wind  before  his  body  was  cold. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 

"TRICKS  OF  THE   TRADE." 

THE  power  of  the  press,  for  good  or  evil,  cannot  well  be 
over-rated.  The  newspapers  of  the  country,  as  elsewhere 
remarked,  constitute  a  kind  of  perpetual  school,  in  which 
people  keep  on  learning  after  they  have  arrived  at  maturity  and 
passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  schoolmaster ;  and  so  they  con 
tinue  to  learn,  all  their  lives,  for  the  pupils  of  the  school  of  the 
press  do  not  graduate  and  leave  it,  as  they  may  leave  a  college 
when  they  have  learned  all  that  is  within  it  taught.  There  then 
could  be  no  greater  public  calamity  than  the  degrading  of  the 
character  of  the  press,  or  the  destruction  or  material  abridg 
ment  of  its  freedom  would  be.  Its  natural  tendency  is  to  do 
good,  rather  than  evil ;  to  advocate  truth,  rather  than  error ; 
and  it  is  its  province  largely  to  mold  and  wholly  reflect  the 
opinions  and  sentiments  of  the  populace.  So,  its  mission  is 
one  of  incalculable  importance.  Orators  may  have  a  temporary 
influence  over  excited  assemblages,  may  inflame  and  mislead 
them ;  but  it  behooves  the  newspaper  to  be  careful  and  truth 
ful,  and  to  reach  correct  conclusions  by  the  most  direct  routes, 
for  it  speaks  to  its  audience  in  quiet  homes  and  in  moments  of 
sober  thought. 

As  I  am  relating  some  "Secrets  of  the  Sanctum/'  while  I 


«  TRICKS  OF   THE    TRADE."  269 

wish  to  avoid  anything  approaching  a  violation  of  confidence, 
I  don't  mind  giving  one  or  two  incidents  in  my  own  experience 
illustrating  the  power  of  a  newspaper,  and  showing  what  an 
engine  it  may  be  made  for  either  good  or  evil  —  in  these  cases 
for  good,  I  trust,  as  was  certainly  intended. 

In  San  Francisco  there  are  tolerated  —  or  were  at  one  time 
—  abuses  that  would  not  be  tolerated  in  any  other  large  city  in 
this  country  or  in  Europe.  When  I  lived  in  that  city  it  was  not 
unusual  for  a  man  to  gallop  along  on  horseback,  through  the 
most  crowded  thoroughfares,  at  the  rate  of  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  miles  an  hour.  Of  course  people  were  frequently  run 
over  and  killed,  but  that  did  not  seem  to  strike  the  authorities 
as  at  all  prejudicial  to  the  public  interests. 

Another  peculiarity  of  San  Francisco  was  the  considerable 
number  of  saddle-horses  daily  to  be  found  standing  on  the 
crowded  sidewalks.  They  were  horses  upon  which  people 
living  a  little  way  out  of  the  city  daily  rode  in  for  the  purpose 
of  transacting  business,  and  were  hitched  to  iron  posts  that 
stood  at  short  intervals  along  the  curb-stone.  No  sooner  would 
the  sagacious  horse  find  himself  secured  to  the  post  than  he 
would  begin  to  think,  like  the  Caucasian  race,  of  "bettering 
his  condition."  Taking  a  calm  view  of  the  moist  gutter  in 
which  he  stood,  and  of  the  clean,  smooth  asphaltum  sidewalk, 
he  would  very  readily  detect  the  superiority  of  the  latter  as  a 
place  to  stand,  and  so  would  begin  slowly  to  describe  an  arc  of 
a  circle,  of  which  the  hitching-post  was  the  center,  like  a  ship 
swinging  round  on  her  anchor  at  the  turning  of  the  tide ;  anc| 
one  minute  after  his  master  left  him  would  find  him  standing 
squarely  across  the  sidewalk,  with  his  nose  toward  the  street,  his 
ears  laid  back  on  his  mane,  and  his  tail  switching  around  within 
two  or  three  feet  of  a  plate-glass  jewelry  window  or  broker's 
door.  Streams  of  pedestrians  were  continually  passing,  dodg- 
23* 


2/0  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

ing  around  the  said  tail,  always  in  peril  of  getting  a  stunning 
kick  on  the  shins  from  the  iron-shod  feet  of  the  animal  with  its 
ears  laid  back  ;  and  nobody  seemed  to  think  that  there  was 
anything  wrong  about  it.  Occasionally  some  good-natured 
pedestrian  would  give  the  horse  a  friendly  slap  on  the  rump, 
say,  "Lookout,  old  fellow,"  and  pass  on  amid  the  throng; 
and  the  animal  merely  put  on  a  smiling  countenance,  laid  his 
ears  back  a  little  flatter,  and  looked  merely  a  trifle  more  in  the 
notion  of  kicking  out  among  the  knees  and  shins  of  the  pedes 
trians,  just  for  fun. 

These  are  only  examples  of  the  extraordinary  practices  famil 
iar  in  the  most  crowded  streets  (notably  Montgomery  and 
Kearny)  of  San  Francisco,  a  city  of  two  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants.  It  was  easily  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the 
city  had  grown  so  rapidly  that  it  had  yet  scarcely  had  time  to 
measure  itself,  to  realize  its  proportions,  and  to  throw  off  the 
habits  of  a  Mexican  village  ;  but  what  would  be  thought  of  such 
things  in  Broadway,  New  York ;  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia  ; 
Washington  Street,  Boston ;  Fourth  Street,  St.  Louis ;  or  Clark 
Street,  Chicago? 

Among  other  nuisances  tolerated  in  the  streets  of  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  which  seemed  rather  pleasing  to  the  municipal 
authorities  than  otherwise,  were  Chinamen  carrying  their  bas 
kets  on  the  sidewalks.  While  I  never  regarded  the  Chinese  as 
a  desirable  element  of  our  population,  I  think  I  did  not  view 
them  with  unreasonable  prejudice,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  a 
dislike  of  them  was  at  all  accountable  for  my  aversion  to  their 
carrying  their  baskets  along  the  sidewalks.  As  not  every  one 
is  familiar  with  these  people  and  their  habits,  a  few  words  of 
explanation  will  be  entirely  in  place. 

The  Chinese  Mongol  does  not  carry  his  burden  in  the  man 
ner  of  the  Caucasian.  He  is  never  seen  with  a  sack  on  his 


"TRICKS   OF   THE    TRADE."  2? I 

shoulder  or  a  basket  on  his  arm,  or  propelling  a*  load  of  vege 
tables  along  the  street  in  a  push-cart  or  wheel -barrow.  What 
ever  he  carries  he  manages  to  divide  into  two  nearly  equal 
parts,  and  places  each  in  a  large  basket,  generally  of  the  capa 
city  of  a  bushel  or  a  bushel  and  a  half.  Each  basket  has  a 
strong  cord  attached  to  it,  in  the  manner  of  a  bucket-bail ;  and 
the  cords  so  attached  to  the  two  baskets  of  the  Chinaman  are 
slung  over  opposite  ends  of  a  bamboo  pole  six  or  eight  feet 
long,  which  is  balanced  upon  his  shoulder,  the  pole  usually  at 
an  angle  of  ten  or  fifteen  degrees  from  the  line  of  his  course ; 
and  so  the  bearer  of  the  burdens  rushes  along  at  a  monotonous 
"  dog-trot  "  in  the  direction  of  his  destination. 

It  will  be  readily  seen  that  these  large,  rough  baskets,  often 
with  splinters  sticking  out  in  all  directions,  rushing  along  over 
the  crowded  sidewalks,  were  no  trifling  annoyance  to  pedes 
trians,  and  it  was  my  opinion  that  they  ought  to  be  banished 
from  the  sidewalks  and  obliged  to  take  the  street,  like  carts  and 
wheel-barrows.  So  strongly  was  I  impressed  with  the  equity 
of  such  a  proposition,  that  I  published  in  the  Enunciator  an 
article  deprecating  the  nuisance  in  strong  terms,  and  calling 
upon  the  Board  of  Supervisors  to  pass  an  ordinance  abating  it. 
This  might  not  have  attracted  the  necessary  amount  of  atten 
tion  in  desirable  quarters,  but  I  resolved  that  the  article  should 
go  and  be  seen  "where  it  would  do  the  most  good."  I  there 
fore  sent  a  copy  of  the  Enunciator,  with  the  article  marked,  to 
each  member  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors,  and  also  to  each 
of  those  gentlemen  a  note  something  like  the  following: 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  4,  18 — . 

SIR: — We  send  you,  by  this  mail,  a  copy  of  the  Enunciator  contain 
ing  an  article  in  reference  to  the  nuisance  of  Chinese  carrying  their  large 
baskets  along  the  sidewalks.  We  believe  that,  together  with  that  journal, 
we  are  justified  in  demanding  their  removal  to  the  street;  and  we  earnestly 
request  that  you  introduce  an  ordinance  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Board 


2/2  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

of  Supervisors,  compelling  persons  carrying  bulky  burdens  along  on  poles 
to  take  the  street,  in  common  with  push-carts  and  wheel-barrows.  This  is 
earnestly  wished  by  MANY  OF  YOUR  CONSTITUENTS. 

At  the  next  meeting  of  the  Board,  an  ordinance  to  this 
effect  was  introduced  and  passed  by  a  unanimous  vote.  A  fine 
of  five  dollars  was  fixed  as  the  penalty  for  every  violation  of  the 
ordinance.  The  measure  attracted  considerable  attention,  and 
was  almost  universally  commended.  In  a  short  time  a  nurpber 
of  Chinese  who  disregarded  the  ordinance  were  arrested  and 
fined ;  till  at  last  the  Mongols,  or  some  party  in  their  interest, 
engaged  a  lawyer,  made  a  test-case,  and  appealed  it,  on  the 
grounds  of  unconstitutionality.  The  case  went  to  a  higher 
court  than  the  municipal  court,  and  finally  reached  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State  of  California,  where,  in  accordance  with 
what  seemed  to  me  the  clearest  rules  of  right,  the  ordinance 
was  sustained.  So,  ever  afterward,  the  Chinese  with  their 
clumsy  baskets  took  the  street,  where  they  belonged,  in  com 
mon  with  push-carts  and  wheel-barrows. 

About  the  same  time  there  was  a  company  of  supposed  capi 
talists  (calling  themselves  the  "Lower  California  Company") 
attempting  to  establish  a  colony  at  Magdalena  Bay,  about  the 
only  considerable  harbor  of  Lower  California,  which  province 
belongs  to  Mexico,  by  offering  great  inducements  to  emigrants, 
making  representations  of  the  extraordinary  fertility  of  the  soil, 
the  salubrity  of  the  climate,  and  promising  to  "  give  every  man 
a  valuable  farm  ' '  who  should  emigrate  to  Magdalena  Bay  and 
settle  in  that  vicinity. 

I  knew  enough  of  Lower  California  to  feel  astonished  at  these 
statements,  which  were  advertised  broadcast  through  California, 
and  upon  making  a  careful  and  pointed  investigation  I  dis 
covered  that  the  "Company"  had  a  selfish  end  in  view;  and 
never  was  it  more  clearly  exemplified  that  "corporations  have 


«  TRICKS   OF   THE   TRADE."  2?$ 

no  souls."  This  "Lower  California  Company"  had  received 
a  grant  of  land  at  Magdalena  Bay  from  the  Mexican  Govern 
ment,  but  accompanied  with  the  condition  that,  to  make  the 
grant  permanent,  a  colony  of  at  least  one  thousand  settlers  must 
be  established  there  within  a  given  time,  and  the  end  of  that 
period  of  time  was  by  no  means  distant.  Now,  the  "  Com 
pany"  valued  the  grant  chiefly  because  a  valuable  article  of 
commerce  —  orchilla  moss,  from  which  a  substance  much  used 
in  dyeing  is  extracted  —  was  to  be  obtained  at  the  Bay  in  great 
abundance ;  and,  with  a  deliberate  cruelty  rarely  equaled,  made 
efforts  to  induce  people  to  go  there  and  settle,  purely  to  make 
valid  their  grant,  well  knowing  that  the  soil  was  as  sterile  as  a 
powder-horn,  tha£  the  landscape  was  one  vast  expanse  of  sand 
and  cactus,  and  that  to  go  there  and  "  settle  "  was  to  sit  down 
and  court  starvation.  The  "  Company,"  I  learned  upon  in 
quiry,  looked  deeper  still  into  the  future  than  the  mere  accumu 
lation  of  a  million  dollars  or  so  from  their  orchilla  moss  —  their 
wilder  ambition  being  one  day  to  sell  out  their  claim,  after 
getting  a  firm  grip  upon  it,  to  the  United  States  Government 
for  an  enormous  sum,  hoping  that  the  latter  party  would  buy  it 
with  an  eye  to  eventual  annexation.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
the  "  Company's "  ambitions  in  this  direction  were  not  un 
reasonable  in  trie  light  of  such  an  atmosphere  of  jobbery  as  has 
of  late  years  hovered  over  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 
Credit  Mobilier  —  Pacific  Mail — Well,  that 's  off  the  subject. 

Learning  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt  what  the  state  of 
things  was,  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  put  a  stop  to  the  business, 
and  determined  to  do  so  if  there  was  power  enough  in  a  single 
weekly  newspaper  to  do  it.  To  that  end,  in  peril  of  a  libel 
suit  with  a  "  wealthy  corporation  "  as  plaintiff,  I  published  in 
the  Enunciator  a  complete  exposition  of  the  scheme,  com 
plaining  particularly  of  the  "  Company's  "  ambition  ultimately 

S 


2/4  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

to  sell  out  its  grant  to  the  United  States,  and  descanting  upon 
the  great  probability  that  such  a  consummation  would  involve 
the  friendly  relations  of  our  country  and  Mexico  ;  and,  indeed, 
I  was  as  earnest  then  as  I  am  now  in  my  opposition  to  any 
scheme  having  for  its  object  the  success  of  stupendous  jobbery 
under  the  guise  of  "acquisition  of  territory."  Copies  of  the 
Enunciator,  with  this  article  carefully  marked,  I  sent  by  mail 
to  all  the  leading  public  men  and  journalists  of  Mexico,  from 
President  Benito  Juarez  down,  including  all  the  Governors  of 
States,  etc.,  having  obtained  a  list  of  their  names  and  addresses 
in  Spanish  from  the  Mexican  Consul  in  San  Francisco.  The 
result  was,  that  the  subject  attracted  immediate  attention,  and 
all  Mexico  was  excited  to  such  a  degree  that  before  three 
months  the  Government  was  constrained  to  revoke  its  grant  of 
Magdalena  Bay,  the  "  colony  "  was  broken  up  and  the  "  Com 
pany  "  banished  from  that  "  fertile  "  soil.  How  a  proposition 
looking  to  the  cession  of  any  of  their  territory  to  the  United 
States  would  strike  the  minds  of  Mexicans,  may  be  judged  from 
the  followi/ng  extract  from  an  editorial  which  subsequently 
appeared  i/n  the  Diaro,  an  official  organ  published  in  the  City 
of  Mexico : 

The  Mexican  people  have  always  regarded  with  indignation  any  idea  of 
a  cession  of  a  part,  even  an  inch,  of  their  territory,  and  to-day  the  public 
man  who  should  propose  such  a  thing  would  not  even  be  judged  as  a  crim 
inal,  but  we  should  hand  him  over  to  the  medical  fraternity  as  a  case  of 
extreme  lunacy.  Such  is  our  conviction,  and  such  is  the  conviction  of  all 
Mexicans.  This  Government  has  not  made,  nor  will  it  ever  admit,  propo 
sitions  for  parting  with  a  single  jot  of  the  territory  of  the  nation.  All  the 
press  of  Mexico  will  unite  in  declaring  the  report  to  the  opposite  effect, 
which  originated  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  to  be  entirely  without  foundation. 

That  the  statements  of  the  Enunciator  were  perfectly  correct 
was  afterward  fully  verified.  Nor  did  any  libel  suit  result. 
Indeed,  some  persons  connected  with  the  nefarious  scheme 


"TRICKS   OF  THE   TRADE."  2?$ 

were  glad  to  get  away  with  their  necks.  The  remnant  of  the 
"colonists"  (many  having  died  of  starvation)  arrived  at  San 
Francisco,  one  day,  having  come  all  the  way  on  foot  —  a  dis 
tance  of  six  hundred  miles ;  and  the  stories  they  told  of  their 
sufferings  fully  confirmed  the  expost  in  the  Enunciator,  and  ex 
emplified  the  perfidy  of  the  "Company." 

While  residing  in  the  suburbs  of  San  Francisco,  my  neigh 
bors  (as  well  as  myself)  were  at  one  time  greatly  pestered  by 
goats,  and  other  domesticated  animals,  which  were  continually 
leaping  fences  and  demolishing  the  vines,  flowers  and  shrub 
bery  of  lawns  and  gardens.  Inspired  by  this  sad  state  of  things, 
bordering  on  vandalism,  and  urged  by  my  neighbors,  who 
thought  that  the  Pound-Keeper  ought  to  look  after  the  matter, 
I  published  the  following  in  the  Enunciator : 

LINES  TO  THE  POUND-MAN. 

Pound-man !     Pound-man ! 
Why  not  come  around,  man  ? 
The  dogs  and  cats  are  running  wild 
As  ever  they  were  found,  man. 

Pound-man !     Pound-man ! 
Where  may  you  be  found,  man? 
If  you  're  within  a  fortnight's  walk 

I  'd  think  you  'd  hear  the  sound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man ! 
Hung,  or  shot,  or  drowned,  man, 
Should  be  a  hundred  beasts  I  know 
That  daily  prowl  around,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man ! 
Goats  are  on  my  ground,  man ; 
They  nip  my  roses,  vines  and  grass, 
Wherever  they  are  found,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
Goats  do  most  abound,  man ; 
They  jump  my  gate,  they  leap  my  fence, 
As  easy  as  a  hound,  man. 


2/6  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
Cows  are  bawling  round,  man ; 
They  break  down  all  my  gates  and  clear 
My  palings  at  a  bound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
Pigs  root  up  my  mound,  man ; 
They  wallow  in  my  "  tater-vines," 
With  ugly,  grunting  sound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
Cries  of  cats  resound,  man; 
I  shoot  at  them  with  deadly  aim, 
But  not  one  can  I  wound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 

List  to  what  is  sound,  man  ; 

These  creatures  drive  a  fellow  mad  — 

They  utterly  confound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
If  you  'd  be  renowned,  man, 
Come  free  the  suburbs  of  this  plague, 
And  you  '11  be,  I  '11  be  bound,  man. 

Pound-man  !     Pound-man  ! 
Credit  won't  redound,  man, 
To  you  in  your  position  if 

You  don't  soon  come  around,  man. 

As  exemplifying  the  power  and  influence  of  a  newspaper,  I 
was  visited  on  the  next  day  after  the  publication  of  the  fore 
going  doggerel  by  a  stranger,  who  said  his  name  was  Bean, 
and  that  he  was  the  City  Pound-man.  When  he  said  this,  I 
very  naturally  concluded  that  he  had  come  in  for  the  purpose 
of  shooting  me,  and  was  just  making  up  my  mind  to  sell  my 
life  as  dearly  as  possible,  when  he  proceeded  to  state  his  case  in 
such  a  courteous  way  as  made  me  see  at  a  glance  that  he  was 
not  insensible-of  the  dignity  of  the  press. 

"I  just  came  in,"  he  said,  "to  ask  if  I  can  do  anything  to 
relieve  you.  I  think  my  force  really  is  too  small,  and  there 


"  TRICKS   OF   THE    TRADE."  2;/ 

are  some  quarters  of  the  city  that  we  cannot  help  neglecting  at 
times.  Where  is  it  you  live,  Mr. ?" 

"Sanchez  Street,  beyond  the  Mission,"  I  replied. 

"Ah,  then  I  see  why  you  are  so  much  annoyed,"  said  he. 
"  That  is  beyond  our  bounds.  We  have  no  authority  to  go 
further  south  than  Sixteenth  Street,  and  I  don't  wonder  that 
you  have  been  worried.  The  bounds  ought  to  be  extended, 
and  our  force  increased." 

"  It  does  look  so,"  said  I. 

"Well,"  he  rejoined,  "you  sha'  n't  be  troubled  any  more,  if 
I  can  help  it.  I  have  steadily  read  your  paper  for  the  last  two 
years,  and  like  it ;  and  as  I  believe  you  are  doing  good  with  it, 
I  will  take  the  responsibility  of  extending  my  territory  so  far  as 
to  see  that  you  are  not  much  annoyed  by  goats  and  cows  in  the 
future." 

I  thanked  him  cordially;  and  I  afterward  discerned  a 
pleasing  scarcity  of  goats  in  the  vicinity  of  my  suburban  home. 
The  power  of  the  press  must  have  searching  ramifications  when 
even  the  pigs  and  goats  feel  and  respect  it. 

While  conducting  the  Enunciator,  I  did  all  in  my  power  to 
make  it  an  instrument  for  the  promotion  of  the  public  good,  as 
I  think  it  is  the  duty  of  every  journalist  to  do  with  his  paper ; 
and  I  think  I  succeeded  in  this  more  than  once,  however  sig 
nally  I  may  have  failed  to  make  it  an  instrument  of  good  to 
myself.  In  addition  to  what  is  above  recounted,  and  some 
other  little  things  I  have  not  the  space  to  mention,  I  think  that 
reckless  riding  and  driving  in  the  streets  assumed  smaller  pro 
portions,  and  accidents  therefrom  became  less  frequent,  owing 
to  articles  published  in  the  Enunciator,  calling  public  attention 
to  these  abuses.  I  know  that  good  was  done  in  this  regard,  so 
far  as  one  person  was  concerned.  He  was  an  "eccentric 
divine,"  whose  sermons  I  had  more  than  once  severely  criti- 
24 


27 8  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

cised  in  the  Enundator.  His  church  was  always  crowded, — 
not,  1  fear,  by  people  who  went  there  with  feelings  of  solemnity 
and  with  wishes  to  be  made  better  during  the  coming  week 
than  they  had  been  during  the  preceding  week,  but  who  were 
rather  drawn  thither  by  a  spirit  of  curiosity ;  because  it  got  to 
be  pretty  well  known  that,  especially  during  the  Sunday  even 
ing  sermons,  the  reverend  gentleman  was  very  mirthful  in  his 
ways,  and  that  bursts  of  laughter  and  the  clapping  of  hands  by 
way  of  applause  were  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception. 

One  day  I  was  crossing  one  of  the  principal  streets,  and  came 
within  about  three-quarters  of  an  inch  of  being  run  over  (and 
of  course  killed)  by  a  horse  that  galloped  along  at  a  furious  rate. 
I  only  escaped  serious  bodily  harm  by  making  a  convulsive  and 
very  undignified  scramble  for  the  nearest  curb-stone,  losing  my 
hat  in  the  operation,  which  useful  article  of  attire  was  promptly 
run  over  and  crushed  by  one  of  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.'s  express 
wagons ;  and  on  looking  after  the  equestrian  who  constituted 
the  burden  of  the  fleet  animal,  and  who  had  directed  it  through 
the  thronged  streets  at  such  a  reckless  pace,  I  discovered  that 
it  was  no  other  than  that  same  "  eccentric  divine."  I  knew 
him  and  he  knew  me  by  sight,  and  I  will  be  charitable  enough 
to  believe  that  he  did  not  purposely  try  to  gallop  over  me 
because  of  my  wicked  criticisms  of  his  sermons ;  but  neverthe 
less  I  thought  that  a  man  of  his  "  cloth  "  ought  not  to  go  gal 
loping  along  in  that  way.  I  never  thought  "personal  journal 
ism  ' '  the  •  proper  thing ;  yet  there  are  persons  who  sometimes 
thrust  themselves  upon  public  notice  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
make  legitimate  news  items  of  themselves ;  and  on  this  occasion 
I  felt  that  I  was  justified  in  referring  to  the  "divine's"  habit 
of  fast  riding,  which  had  more  than  once  before  attracted  my 
notice.  This  I  did  in  the  Enunciator  in  terms  little  short  of 
"libelous,"  giving  his  full  name  and  comparing  him  unfavor- 


«  TRICKS   OF   THE    TRADE."  279 

ably  with  a  regular  horse-jockey,  as  he  deserved  ;  and  the  result 

was  —  not  a  libel  suit,  but  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  S ,  who  of 

course  read  the  article,  as  I  afterward  learned,  felt  it  so  keenly 
that  he  never  again  rode  through  the  busy  thoroughfares  of  San 
Francisco  "faster  than  a  walk,"  as  the  bridge  notice  says. 
Probably  a  life  was  saved  by  his  "change  of  heart"  in  this 
regard,  and  if  so  it  was  the  happiness  of  the  Enunciator  to  do 
some  good  at  least. 

In  the  more  prosperous  days  of  that  journal's  career  a  vigor 
ous  rivalry  once  sprang  up  between  it  and  another  weekly  paper 
published  in  the  same  city.  Each  paper  was  always  "running" 
a  serial  story,  and  of  course  every  effort  was  made  by  each  to 
"beat"  the  other  in  securing  a  "bang-up"  good  romance. 
In  those  days  we  had  scarcely  any  novelists  in  California,  and 
had  to  depend  on  more  distant  sources  for  our  stories  —  some 
times  buying  them  from  Eastern  authors,  sometimes  "  stealing  " 
them  from  European  papers,  as,  in  the  absence  of  an  interna 
tional  copyright  law,  we  had  a  perfect  legal  and  reciprocal  right 
to  do. 

On  one  occasion  a  remarkable  coincidence  occurred :  both 
papers  began  on  the  same  day  to  publish  the  same  story,  which 
was  taken  from  the  London  Journal.  As  neither  one  could 
make  the  story  better  than  the  other,  the  only  end  now  aimed 
at  by  each,  in  the  spirit  of  emulation,  was  to  publish  more  of 
the  story  in  each  installment  than  its  rival.  The  amount  of 
the  story  published  in  each  number  of  the  London  Journal  as 
it  came  to  hand  made  a  fair  installment  in  the  Enunciator  and 
in  its  rival ;  and  as  neither  could  publish  more  each  week  than 
the  Journal  itself  contained,  the  two  papers  kept  even  for  some 
weeks ;  and  the  fact  that  they  contained  just  the  same  portions 
of  the  story  each  week  began  to  attract  attention,  as  the  rivalry 
between  the  two  journals  was  pretty  well  known  to  the  public. 


28O  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

At  last  an  ill-fated  week  came,  and  brought  with  it  a  terrible 
exigence.  My  London  Journal,  which  I  had  theretofore  re 
ceived  regularly  by  mail,  failed  to  come  to  hand.  It  might 
have  been  the  fault  of  the  mails,  or  of  the  person  whose  duty  it 
was  to  mail  it,  or  it  might  have  been  owing  to  the  carelessness 
of  the  boy  whom  I  sent  to  the  Post-office  for  my  papers ;  but  the 
stern  fact  remained  the  same  :  it  had  not  come ;  it  had  missed. 
Wild  with  apprehension,  I  made  the  rounds  of  the  various  news 
dealers'  establishments,  and  asked  each  if  he  had  a  copy  of  the 
London  Journal  he  could  spare  just  as  well  as  not.  I  asked  in 
a  very  careless  way,  of  course,  although  I  would  gladly  have 
given  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  one.  None  of  them 
kept  it  at  all.  There  was  probably  but  one  copy  in  San 
Francisco,  and  that  was  in  the  hands  of  the  rival  editor. 
It  of  course  could  not  have  been  secured,  except  through  the 
exercise  of  a  bit  of  petty  larceny,  and,  although  I  won't  say 
what  the  temptation  of  "  opportunity  "might  have  induced  me 
to  do,  I  entertained  no  hope  in  that  direction.  To  copy  the 
next  installment  from  the  rival  sheet  and  publish  it  one  week 
later  would  be  to  send  that  paper  a  dozen  lengths  ahead  of  the 
Enunciator  in  the  estimation  of  the  hundreds  of  people  who 
read  both  papers.  What  then  was  to  be  done  ? 

I  went  back  to  the  office  on  the  verge  of  despair.  I  sat  down 
and  meditated,  I  could  not  convince  myself  that  suicide  was 
exactly  the  right  thing,  but  the  necessity  for  my  ever  having 
been  born  in  the  first  place  was  in  my  mind  very  equivocal  and 
indistinct.  If  some  merciful  angel  in  the  form  of  the  cholera 
or  small-pox  had  come  around  and  carried  me  away  to  the  cem 
etery  in  a  creditable  manner,  I  could  have  rejoiced;  but  there  I 
was,  ruddy,  robust,  strong,  with  an  appetite  like  an  ostrich,  and 
no  prospect  of  a  speedy  and  honorable  death ;  and  so  some 
thing  had  to  be  done.  Just  in  my  gloomiest  pitch  of  despair 


"  TRICKS  OF   THE   TRADEr  28 1 

a  thought  struck  me.  It  was  suggested  by  the  very  desperate- 
ness  of  the  situation.  I  must  write  an  imaginary  continuation 
of  the  story.  But  here  was  a  difficulty.  Persons  who  saw 
both  papers  would  discover  a  marked  difference,  as  the  irrecon 
cilable  heads  of  chapters  must  immediately  strike  the  eye.  The 
real  story  might  in  the  very  next  chapter  kill  an  important  char 
acter,  while  I  might  guess  wrong  as  to  what  was  in  store  for 
him  and  treat  the  same  character  to  a  "streak  of  good  luck/' 
such,  for  example,  as  being  awarded  a  contract  for  street-paving. 
Besides,  it  would  not  only  be  irreconcilable  with  the  contempo 
rary  installment  in  our  rival,  but  also  with  the  remainder  of  the 
story,  which  probably  had  not  yet  been  half  published.  A  few 
minutes'  active  thought  resulted  in  suggesting  a  way  out  of  the 
difficulty.  The  plan  was  to  write  a  long  chapter  that  would  be 
such  a  complete  episode  that  it  could  not  possibly  be  affected  by 
anything  that  might  come  after  it. 

I  consulted  the  preceding  installment,  and  found  that  the  hero 
had  been  left  in  a  gloomy  wood,  on  his  way  to  a  lonely  house 
two  miles  distant,  where  he  expected  to  rescue  the  heroine  from 
several  desperate  characters  who  had  been  hired  to  abduct  her 
by  a  wealthy  but  villainous  rival,  whose  object  was  to  frighten 
her  into  marrying  him,  instead  of  the  hero.  I  deemed  that  it 
could  do  no  possible  injury  to  the  thread  of  the  story  to  treat 
him  to  a  ghost  on  the  way,  and  I  accordingly  "pitched  in," 
and  wrote  a  chapter  of  five-and-a-half  columns,  setting  forth 
the  following  "  facts  :  "  He  suddenly  saw  a  light  in  the  deep 
wood  a  few  hundred  yards  to  the  right  of  the  road ;  thought 
he  heard  also  a  smothered  cry ;  it  occurred  to  him  that  it  might 
be  the  custodians  of  the  heroine,  who  were  removing  her  to 
some  other  place  of  confinement,  to  prevent  her  rescue ;  in 
stantly  ran  to  the  spot ;  found  a  deserted  log-house ;  entered  it ; 
saw  frequent  gleams  of  strange,  bluish  lights ;  heard  rappings  on 
24* 


282  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

the  walls,  and  wild,  weird  songs  and  laughter  all  around  him ; 
house  evidently  haunted ;  the  door  was  closed  by  invisible 
hands ;  apparitions  issued  from  the  walls  and  floor,  and  some 
flew  at  him  with  phantom  swords ;  he  finally  made  his  escape,  by 
jumping  from  a  window,  after  an  hour  of  horror,  and  proceeded  on 
his  mission. 

The  two  papers  were,  as  usual,  issued  on  the  following  Sun- 
,day  morning,  and  the  result  of  my  bit  of  handiwork  proved 
favorable  to  the  Enunciator,  because  a  subject  of  general  re 
mark  was  the  "carelessness"  of  our  rival  in  having  overlooked 
and  omitted  the  most  absorbing  chapter  in  the  story.  Years 
afterward,  the  rival  editor  and  I  frequently  met  on  the  most 
friendly  terms,  and,  in  alluding  to  our  former  active  emulation, 
he  would  say : 

"I  don't  see  how  I  ever  missed  that  ghost-scene.  It's  the 
strangest  thing  in  the  world.  I  always  cut  out  \hzJournaTs 
installment  myself,  and  it  does  not  seem  possible  that  I  could 
have  clipped  a  portion  of  an  installment,  leaving  a  whole  chap 
ter —  so  large  a  chapter  as  that,  too.  Yet,  I  don't  see  how 
else  it  could  have  happened." 

I  finally  told  him  the  secret,  but  not  until  after  both  papers 
had  ceased  to  exist. 

There  is  the  very  essence  of  competition  between  newspapers. 
Nothing  delights  a  paper  more  than  to  "beat"  its  contempo 
raries — that  is,  secure  a  piece  of  important  news  which  they 
have  failed  to  obtain.  Such  piece  of  news  is  called  an  "  exclu 
sive."  I  have  known  of  circumstances  under  which  a  paper 
would  gladly  have  paid  ten  thousand  dollars  for  one  column  of 
news  that  it  might  publish  six  hours  in  advance  of  any  and  all 
other  papers  in  the  country.  Not  that  its  profits  from  the 
increased  sales  of  that  single  issue  would  anywhere  nearly  have 
approached  this  figure,  but  because  such  an  "exclusive"  would 


"  TRICKS   OF   THE   TRADE."  283 

have  been  "a  big  card,"  an  advertisement  that  would  have 
been  certain  to  pay  in  the  long  run. 

As  an  illustration,  I  once  walked  complacently  about  the 
streets  of  a  certain  little  city,  carrying  in  my  pocket  a  bit  of 
news,  of  about  two  columns,  which  I  was  in  honor  bound  not 
to  publish  before  the  noon  of  the  following  day,  and  for  which 
the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars  was  freely  offered  by  agents  of 
papers  published  in  various  large  cities,  over  fifty  of  such  agents 
being  there.  So  keen  was  the  search  for  the  document,  that  I 
deemed  it  advisable,  when  night  came,  to  carry  a  revolver  in 
my  pocket  as  a-  precaution  against  possible  assault  —  not  by  a 
newspaper  man,  but  by  some  ruffian  who  might  have  learned  of 
its  value  and  suspected  that  I  had  it  in  my  possession.  That 
night  I  went  to  my  office  at  twelve  o'clock,  when  all  was  quiet, 
and  had  the  article  put  in  type,  between  that  hour  and  three 
A.  M.,  by  two  compositors  sworn  to  secrecy;  and  so  I  succeeded 
in  preserving  the  document  from  premature  publication,  and  in 
publishing  it  sooner  and  more  accurately  than  any  other  paper. 

If  in  this  chapter  I  allude  to  the  fact  that  a  man  sometimes 
pays  a  reporter  or  editor  to  suppress  a  piece  of  news  in  which  he 
happens  to  figure  in  a  discreditable  light,  I  do  so  only  to  say 
that  such  transactions  are  not  common,  and  that  they  are 
strongly  denounced  by  reputable  journals,  editors  and  reporters. 
I  have  known  of  such  a  thing  being  done,  but  in  its  principle 
there  is  such  an  odor  of  blackmailing  that  it  seems  to  me  it 
ought  to  be  classed  with  "crimes  and  misdemeanors." 

One  day,  while  I  was  connected  with  a  Boston  daily,  an 
elderly  man  came  into  the  editorial-room,  and  it  may  be  judged 
by  the  brief  dialogue  which  ensued  that  he  was  a  pretty  direct 
business  man : 

"  Are  you  the  editor? " 

"Yes." 


284  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

"  Well,  I  'm  William  P.  Brown,  of  Salem." 

"Yes?" 

"  It  was  I  that  was  before  the  Police  Court  there  yesterday, 
and  I  wouldn't  have  my  name  go  into  the  Boston  papers  for 
the  world.  Will  you  keep  it  out?  " 

Now,  we  had  no  regular  reporter  in  Salem,  had  sent  none 
there,  and  in  any  event  the  little  case  he  mentioned  would 
not  probably  have  been  alluded  to  in  our  columns.  However, 
to  make  him  feel  as  comfortable  as  possible,  and  being  slightly 
annoyed  at  the  interruption,  I  told  a  deliberate  fib,  saying, 
excitedly : 

"My  goodness  !  You  're  just  in  time.  It  would  have  been 
in  type  in  five  minutes  more  and  locked  in  the  form." 

"And  it  isn't  too  late?"  he  said,  nervously. 

"  No ;  rely  on  it,  I  shall  see  that  it  does  not  go  in." 

"Ah,  thank  you!" — putting  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and 
taking  out  his  pocket-book,  —  "How  much  is  it  ?  " 

"  O,  we  make  no  charge  for  anything  like  that." 

"  Thank  you  !  Thank  you  !  " 

And  he  pocketed  his  wallet  and  departed  a  happier  but  not 
wiser  man. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

HUMORS    OF  JOURNALISM. 

A  WHOLE  volume  might  readily  be  written  on  this  subject 
alone,  and  in  the  present  chapter  I  can  only  give  it,  com 
paratively  speaking,  a  passing  notice.     It  would  be  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  all  journalists  are  born  humorists,  although  it 
would  be  no  mistake  to  assume  that,  taken  collectively,  they 


HUMORS   OF  JOURNALISM.  285 

have  fully  as  fine  a  sense  of  humor  as  any  other  class  of  people. 
I  think,  too,  that  as  many  funny  things  occur  in  a  newspaper 
establishment  as  in  any  other  institution.  The  very  blunders 
made  in  newspaper  work  often  have  an  element  of  fun  in  them 
not  to  be  found,  say,  for  example,  in  a  carriage-manufactory, 
where  the  accidental  mutilation  of  a  carefully-polished  wheel  or 
two,  through  some  one's  awkwardness,  would  not  be  considered* 
very  provocative  of  mirth.  Yes,  and  when  anything  particularly 
good  happens  in  a  newspaper  establishment  it  is  taken  up,  and 
"goes  the  rounds."  An  awkward  expression  of  an  editor, 
however  inadvertent ;  a  mistake  in  "emptying"  or  "making- 
up ;  "  typographic  errors  of  an  unusual  nature ;  these  are  not 
allowed  to  rest,  if  they  once  "get  out,"  but  are  "passed 
along,"  with  many  appended  comments. 

As  regards  the  proposition  of  the  editor  making  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  be  funny,  such  a  thing  is  never  done  by  any  who 
actually  do  succeed  in  being  funny.  An  amusing  comment 
appended  to  a  two-line  news  item  is  always  spontaneous,  and 
the  editor  never  thinks  of  its  being  either  witty  or  amusing. 
For  example,  here  is  a  paragraph  that  went  the  rounds  a  few 
years  ago,  and  in  which  there  is  certainly  no  great  depth  of 
humor,  but  which  it  is  difficult  to  read  for  the  first  time  without 
at  least  smiling : 

A  man  named  Bloat  keeps  a  drinking-saloon  in  Oakland,  California. 
Comment  is  unnecessary. 

Another  is  this,  which  must  have  been  a  serious  matter  to 
somebody : 

A  man  in  Williamsport,  Pa.,  fell  dead  the  other  day  while  combing  his 
hair.  Yet  people  will  engage  in  this  dangerous  practice  every  day. 

Here  is  another : 


286  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

Be  very  careful  in  handling  buckwheat  flour.  A  barrel  of  the  dangerous 
stuff  exploded  in  Keokuk,  Iowa,  a  few  days  ago. 

Another  : 

A  well-known  character,  with  the  sobriquet  of  "  Reddy  Johnson,"  was 
fatally  stabbed  in  St.  Louis,  the  other  evening,  with  a  heated  poker.  Of 
course,  Reddy  had  to  have  a  hot  punch. 

Comments  like  these  are  added  to  little  news  paragraphs 
usually  when  the  editors  who  make  them  are  actually  in  a  bad 
humor,  as  may  be  guessed  by  their  half  reckless  cynicism ;  and 
certainly  the  editor  has  no  more  thought  of  saying  anything 
funny  than  if  he  were  asking  his  grocery  man  how  much  he 
owed  him  —  a  time  when  no  one  is  likely  to  assume  the  atti 
tude  of  a  humorist. 

Awkward  language  occasionally  used,  notty  the  ignoramus, 
but  by  editors  of  experience  and  ability,  is  a  fruitful  source  of 
mirth.  For  example,  an  Auburn  (N.  Y.)  paper  stated  not 
long  since  that  there  was  to  be  added  to  one  of  its  institutions 
of  learning  a  building  "to  accommodate  an  increased  number 
of  students  two  hundred  feet  long."  We  have  all  seen  tall 
students,  but  students  with  a  length  of  two  hundred  feet  are 
new  to  most  of  us.  They  remind  me  of  a  story  that  is  told  of 
a  tall,  slim  English  gentleman  who  appeared  for  the  first  time 
in  society.  "Who  is  that?"  a  gentleman  asked  of  a  lady. 
"That  is  Mr.  Adolphus  Bunks.  He  is  intended  for  the 
church."  "  Ah  ?  I  should  think  him  better  calculated  for  the 
steeple  !  " 

Another  example  of  hurried  and  awkward  language  is  this, 
which  has  been  going  the  rounds  for  years,  and  which,  even  if 
fictitious,  is  perfectly  natural  and  not  at  all  incredible  : 

A  temperance  editor,  in  drawing  attention  to  an  article  against  ardent 
spirits  in  his  paper,  says:  "  For  an  example  of  the  effects  of  intemperance 
see  our  inside  !  " 


HUMORS  OF  JOURNALISM.  287 

The  Foreman's  occasional  blunders  in  making  up  are  also  a 
source  of  amusement.  While  publishing  the  Enunciator  in  San 
Francisco  we  had  a  department  of  humorous  paragraphs,  mostly 
clipped  from  exchanges.  On  one  occasion  the  Foreman,  in 
making  up,  got  a  few  lines  of  our  market  reports  mixed  up  with 
these  funny  paragraphs,  and  the  effect  was  little  less  than  ludi 
crous.  Imagine  this  paragraph  "sandwiched  in"  between  a 
first-class  conundrum  and  a  side-splitting  joke  : 

FLOUR. — Demand  active.  Sales  of  good  to  choice  family  at  $6.75  @ 
$7.00  ;  fine  Indiana  brands,  $7.25  @  $7.40  ;  California,  first  quality,  $7.50 
@  $8.00,  with  large  demand  and  an  upward  tendency. 

A  contemporary  called  attention  to  this  innocent-looking 
blunder,  which  at  the  time  of  its  commission  did  not  occur  to 
me  as  being  very  funny,  after  the  following  fashion : 

The  Enunciator  has  every  week  a  column  of  funny  paragraphs,  always 
good,  but  in  this  department  of  its  last  issue  we  find  something  so  excep 
tionally  funny  that  we  cannot  help  quoting  it:  [Here  followed  the  "flour" 
paragraph.]  The  point  of  this  joke  will  of  course  be  readily  seen.  The 
•word  "  flour,"  to  start  with,  has  a  droll,  good-natured  appearance,  and 
strikes  the  eye  as  being  in  an  unusually  good-humor.  Then,  "  demand 
active  "  is  very  neatly  put,  suggesting  an  absence  of  anything  like  rheuma 
tism  or  gout;  while  "  $6.75  @  $7.00  "is  simply  irresistible.  "Indiana 
brands  "  is  a  peculiarly  happy  hit ;  and  certainly  no  one  could  have  failed 
to  roar  with  laughter  when  he  read,  $7.50  @  $8.00,  with  large  demand." 
Our  neighbor  has  a  happy  faculty  of  picking  up  all  the  "good  things"  that 
are  going. 

It  occasionally  happens  that  the  Editor,  who  is  clipping  little 
paragraphs  from  exchanges  for  certain  departments  of  his  paper, 
inadvertently  pastes  it  on  his  copy-paper,  with  other  items, 
wrong-side  up.  I  remember  that  a  proof  of  my  humorous  de 
partment  once  came  to  me  with  this  extraordinary  paragraph 
standing  out  boldly,  and  from  all  around  it : 

This  stove  is  universally  pronounced  the  most  durable,  the  best  baker, 
either  of  loaves,  rolls,  or  muffins,  with  the  least  consumption  of  fuel,  of  any 
stove  or  range  yet  introduced. 


288  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

I  saw  at  a  glance  that  I  had  evidently  pasted  a  funny  para 
graph  on  wrong-side  up,  and  that  the  wrong  side  so  presented 
to  the  compositor  contained  a  paragraph  from  an  advertisement 
of  a  patent  stove,  and  of  course  I  marked  it  "  out." 

This  mistake  of  getting  the  wrong  side  of  a  paragraph  up  is 
illustrated  by  the  following  anecdote,  of  the  authenticity  of 
which,  however,  I  am  not  in  possession  : 

A  certain  clergyman,  reading  from  the  pulpit  a  number  of 
religious  announcements  one  Sabbath,  some  of  which  had  been 
clipped  from  newspapers  and  laid  on  his  stand,  unluckily  -read 
the  wrong  side  of  one  of  the  slips,  which  happened  to  contain 
this  advertisement  of  the  business  establishment  of  a  prominent 
member  of  the  church : 

BOOTS!  BOOTS!  SHOES!  SHOES!  —  George  S.  Brown  keeps  constantly 
on  hand,  and  will  sell  cheap  for  cash,  at  No.  10  Pine  Street,  the  largest  and 
best  assortment  of  boots  and  shoes  in  town.  Give  him  a  call  before  pur 
chasing  elsewhere.  m6 — im. 

The  minister,  happening  to  be  a  recent  arrival,  supposed  that 
it  was  customary  in  that  place  to  read  from  the  pulpit  adver 
tisements  of  the  business  of  members,  and  innocently  added  : 

"  Brother  Brown,  I  understand,  is  a  very  worthy  member  of 
this  church,  and  I  have  no  doubt  will  deal  fairly  with  any  of 
the  congregation  who  choose  to  patronize  him." 

It  may  not  be  improper  to  state  just  here  that  for  a  paragraph 
in  a  newspaper  to  appear  exactly  opposite  a  paragraph  of  the 
same  dimensions  on  the  reverse  side  of  the  sheet  is  almost  as 
rare  as  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun  observable  simultaneously  in 
England  and  New  Zealand.  In  the  first  place,  a  sheet  ought 
to  "  register"  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  process  of  printing — 
that  is,  the  forms  in  their  turn  should  be  so  accurately  placed 
on  the  press  that  the  column  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other 
would  be  exactly  opposite  each  other,  and  that  the  heads  of 


HUMORS   OF  JOURNALISM.  289 

columns  on  either  side  should  be  an  equal  distance  from  the 
edge  of  the  paper.  His  aim  often  fails ;  but  even  if  it  hits 
perpetually,  the  chances  are  that  not  once  in  ten  thousand  days 
of  the  existence  of  a  paper  will  two  paragraphs  of  just  the 
same  size,  same  number  of  lines,  and,  above  all,  in  the  same 
size  of  type  be  found  precisely  opposite  each  other  on  the  same 
slip  clipped  from  a  newspaper.  But  that  it  may  occur  and  has 
occured  is  proved  by  the  following  two  items,  the  first  of  which 
I  once  clipped  from  a  Boston  paper,  afterward  finding  the  other 
side  up  and  scarcely  knowing  which  item  I  had  intended  to 
quote  in.  a  column  of  miscellaneous  paragraphs : 

WILLS. —  We  have  heard  of  a  will  admitted  to 
probate  written  upon  a  paper  collar,  and  have  heard 
of  one  written  with  chalk  on  a  barn-door;  but  here  is 
a  new  story  :  The  will  of  Phebe  Ann  Woodward, 
late  of  Kennet  Square,  Penn.,  recently  found  written 
upon  a  new  slate  carefully  enclosed  in  a  box  and 
locked  up  in  a  trunk,  and  dated  May  g,  1863,  has 
been  admitted  to  probate. 

Among  the  novelties  at  the  late  Lyons  Exhibi 
tion  were  certain  products  obtained  from  the  reed 
mace  or  cat's  tail,  a  plant  which  is  very  abundant  in 
marshy  districts,  but  which  has  been  utilized  only  to 
a  small  extent,  for  mats,  chair-bottoms,  baskets,  etc. 
Some  idea  of  the  abundance  of  reed  mace  may  be 
formed  from  the  fact  that  France  is  capable  of  pro 
ducing  at  least  100,000  tons  of  it  yearly. 

This  subject  of  the  "other  side"  of  a  printed  page  reminds 
me  of  a  subject  to  which,  if  I  failed  to  refer,  I  might  be  con 
sidered  derelict  as  the  writer  of  this  work.  I  mean  the  "  patent 
outside"  business.  I  ought  to  explain  it,  because  it  has  fur 
nished  one  of  the  best  jokes  in  the  annals  of  journalistic  humor. 
The  "outside"  of  a  country  newspaper  (its  first  and  fourth 
pages)  is  often  made  up  of  selections,  stories,  verses,  para 
graphs  of  general  interest,  humorous  squibs,  and  so  forth ;  while 
the  "inside"  (second  and  third  pages)  contains  editorials,  the 
freshest  accessible  news  and  the  freshest  advertisements.  It 
25  T 


2gO  SECRETS  OF   THE  SANCTUM. 

seems  to  have  occurred  to  some  enterprising  genius  that  one 
well-got  up  "outside"  ought  to  suit  equally  well  a  large  num 
ber  of  country  weekly  journals,  and  a  plan  was  organized,  first 
in  Chicago,  I  think,  by  which  hundreds  of  establishments*  dis 
tant  from  one  another,  were  furnished  with  sheets  on  which  to 
print  their  "  inside,"  the  other  side  (their  outside)  of  which 
contained  well-selected  and  neatly-printed  miscellaneous  matter, 
always,  of  course,  culled  with  a  careful  regard  to  neutrality, 
and,  in  fact,  without  reference  to  sectarian  or  political  questions. 
Among  the  drollest  effects,  quickly  visible  to  the  practical  eye, 
was  the  extraordinary  dissimilarity  in  the  mechanical  workman 
ship, —  the  "patent  outside"  being  very  clean,  having  been 
printed  in  a  large  city,  on  a  cylinder-press,  and  the  "  original" 
"inside"  with  many  typographic  errors,  having  been  printed 
in  a  country  town  on  a  hand-press.  Now,  the  joke  in  this 
connection  that  went  the  rounds  of  the  press,  without  regard  to 
party,  in  the  autumn  of  1873,  was  to  ^ie  following  effect : 

Hon.  Wm.  Allen  was  running  for  Governor  of  Ohio  (and 
was  afterward  elected)  on  the  Democratic  ticket.  The  Repub 
lican  nominee  was  Mr.  Hayes,  then,  I  think,  Governor  of  the 
State.  Governor  Allen,  "Bill"  Allen,  one  of  the  honest,  old- 
fashioned  men  of  the  days  of  Jackson,  was  a  powerful  public 
speaker,  with  a  voice  like  a  raging  thunder-storm.  Some  of 
the  Republican  papers,  in  the  course  of  the  gubernatorial  can 
vass,  made  sarcastic  reference  to  Mr.  Allen's  tremendous  voice, 
and  one  of  them  even  printed  this  rude  paragraph  : 

We  understood  that  after  Governor  Hayes  takes  some  of  the  wind  out  of 
Bill  Allen,  he  will  be  offered  a  position  on  the  coast  of  Rhode  Island  to  act 
as  a  fog-horn. 

This  of  course  sounded  well  enough  in  a  Republican  paper, 
Allen  being  the  Democratic  candidate,  but  didn't  look  very 


HUMORS   OF  JOURNALISM.  29 1 

well  in  a  strongly  Democratic  county  paper.  Yet,  in  such  paper 
the  paragraph  appeared,  being  embodied  in  the  miscellaneous 
paragraphs  of  the  "patent  outside"  (used  by  the  Editor,  en 
tirely  unknown  to  his  country  subscribers),  the  compiler  of  the 
patent  outside  having  forgotten  that  one  of  his  first  duties  was 
to  avoid  sectarian  or  partisan  allusions.  The  Editor  of  the 
country  paper  in  question  had  a  lively  time  of  it  explaining  how 
such  a  disrespectful  allusion  to  "Bill"  Allen  happened  to  be 
made  in  his  paper. 

Sometimes  two  different  reporters  of  a  city  daily  happen  to 
furnish  the  same  item  of  news,  and  if  the  City  Editor  overlooks 
the  matter  a  "duplicate"  is  the  result.  This  is  not  a  very 
serious  matter,  provided  the  statements  in  the  two  articles  agree 
substantially,  but  when  they  don't  the  joke  is  certainly  on  the 
Editor.  The  following  "duplicate"  once  occurred  in  a  daily 
of  which,  I  almost  shrink  from  confessing,  I  was  the  City  Editor 
at  the  time,  and  so  morally  responsible  for  the  blunder : 

BOY  SHOT.  —  Yesterday  afternoon  Edward  Farrigan,  twelve  years  old, 
residing  with  his  father  at  No.  633  Oxford  Street,  while  playing  with  a  pistol 
in  an  adjacent  alley,  accidentally  discharged  the  weapon,  and  the  bullet  pen 
etrated  his  left  wrist,  producing  a  very  bad  wound.  Amputation  of  the 
hand  will  probably  be  necessary. 

BOY  SHOT.  —  This  forenoon,  while  a  boy  named  Charles  Ellsworth,  was 
fooling  with  an  old  shot-gun  in  Amity  Place,  Oxford  Street,  the  weapon, 
which  was  not  supposed  to  be  loaded,  was  discharged,  and  a  number  of  shot 
struck  the  right  arm  of  another  boy,  named  Edward  Farrigan,  who  was 
passing  along  the  street,  making  a  slight  flesh-wound  near  the  elbow. 
Farrigan  is  fifteen  years  old,  and  resides  at  No.  633  Oxford  Street.  He  is 
an  errand-boy  for  Jordan,  Marsh  &  Co.  Fortunately  the  wound  is  not  at 
all  serious,  but  he  had  a  narrow  escape. 

The  effect  of  getting  portions  of  two  articles,  on  two  very 
distinct  subjects,  mixed  in  the  making-tip,  is  sometimes  very 
ludicrous.  For  example,  a  country  paper  once  contained  an 
article  describing  a  revival  meeting ;  and  it  proceeded  to  depict 
the  burning  eloquence  of  the  preacher  in  this  style : 


SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

Raising  himself  in  the  pulpit,  and  lifting  his  hands  toward  heaven,  while 
his  face  seemed  lighted  up  with  rays  of  the  glory  of  eternal  life,  he  appealed 
to  all  to  jump  through  the  window.  Having  done  so,  he  ran  up  the  street, 
like  a  quarter-horse,  with  his  nose  scarcely  an  inch  from  the  ground;  bit 
two  hogs  and  a  cow,  flew  at  Mr.  Evans,  and  might  have  bitten  him  and 
inoculated  him  with  the  horrible  poison,  but  for  the  fact  that  at  this  moment 
Mr.  Sterling,  the  constable,  appeared  on  the  scene  with  a  gun,  and  shot  the 
beast  through  the  head.  He  never  kicked  afterward. 

Here  was  a  case  in  which  the  accounts  of  a  revival  meeting 
and  the  doings  and  death  of  a  mad  dog  got  "mixed  "  in  the 
making-up. 

It  is  related  of  a  country  editor  that  in  making-up  his  paper, 
a  duty  he  performed  himself,  he  got  the  closing  words  of  an 
obituary  notice  interchanged  with  the  last  line  of  a  bitter  attack 
on  a  rival  editor,  with  the  following  deplorable  result : 

Leaving  behind  her  a  wide  circle  of  mourning  friends,  she  has  bidden 
adieu  to  this  fair  world  forever,  and  gone  to  that  —  greatest  old  rascal  that 
ever  existed ! 

The  following  is  from  a  communication  published  in  the 
London  Telegraph,  during  the  autumn  of  1874: 

Can  any  one  tell  me  the  meaning  of  the  following  paragraph,  which  I  have 
taken  from  a  contemporary,  headed  "Building  Materials"?  Mr.  A.  W. 
Chase,  of  the  United  States  Coast  Survey,  in  a  letter  to  Professor  Silliman, 
says  he  has  seen  a  curious  nest  built  by  the  so-called  California  wood-rat,  a 
little  dark-brown  animal,  described  as  an  intermediate  between  a  squirrel 
and  a  rat.  These  creatures  live  in  dome-shaped  structures  made  of  twigs, 
bark,  and  grass,  built  either  on  the  ground  or  in  the  lower  branches  of  trees, 
and  frequently  ten  feet  high  and  six  feet  in  diameter.  The  one  seen  by  Mr. 
Chase  was  composed  of  large  iron  spikes,  of  which  there  were  several  kegs 
in  the  house,  the  spikes  being  arranged  with  their  points  outward.  Interlaced 
with  them  were  about  three  dozen  knives,  forks,  and  spoons ;  a  carving- 
knife,  fork  and  steel;  the  case,  glass,  and  works  of  a  silver  watch,  separately 
stored  away,  and  several  large  augers. 

This  curiously  -  constructed  paragraph  greatly  puzzled  me 
when  I  read  it,  nor  am  I  sure  that  I  yet  quite  penetrate  it ;  but 
I  think  there  must  be  an  "out  "  somewhere,  or  that  the  com- 


HUMORS   OF  JOURNALISM.  293 

piler,  in  condensing,  failed  to  preserve  the  whole  essence,  as  it 
seems  to  me  that  a  material  break  in  the  thread  thrusts  itself 
out  from  the  body  of  the  story.  Or,  it  may  have  been  the  re 
sult  of  a  "mixture,"  in  which  case  the  right  story  must  have 
broken  off  and  a  fragment  of  the  wrong  one  have  stepped  in  just 
after  the  words,  "The  one  seen  by  Mr.  Chase  was  composed 
of—,"  etc. 

In  the  Philadelphia  Ledger,  a  daily  paper  that  is  conducted 
pretty  carefully,  as  a  rule,  I  recently  found  the  following  para 
graph,  standing  all  alone,  as  it  were,  among  some  short  miscel 
laneous  paragraphs  under  the  general  head  of  "  Varieties  :  " 

t 

Yet  he  seems  to  possess  consciousness  to  some  degree.  He  is  sensitive 
of  tickling  or  sharp  tapping,  and  he  exercises  some  power  of  resistance  to 
any  attempt  to  bend  his  limbs.  He  is,  nevertheless,  apparently  asleep. 
Quinine  applied  on  his  tongue  produces  grimaces  and  other  signs  of  disgust, 
and  a  loud  noise  made  at  the  bedside  will  cause  a  quiver  through  his  frame. 
The  history  of  the  case,  as  far  as  the  doctor  could  ascertain,  is  that  he  had 
been  drinking  hard  for  several  years,  and  quit  it  twelve  months  ago.  He 
then  took  to  drinking  strong  tea.  Altogether  the  man  has  been  one  hun 
dred  days  suffering,  having  been  three  weeks  ailing  before  admittance  to 
the  hospital. 

A  person  knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the  process  by  which 
a  newspaper  is  "  got  up  "  might  "  stop  and  stare  "  quite  a  while- 
over  such  a  paragraph.  But  the  practiced  eye  sees  at  once  how 
such  a  mistake  may  have  occurred.  It  was  probably  a  blunder 
in  "making  up."  That  is,  the  person  who  made  up  the  form 
inadvertently  got  hold  of  the  last  paragraph  of  an  account  — 
probably  three  or  four  stickfuls  —  of  a  singular  case  of  physical 
affliction  and  placed  it  on  the  imposing-stone  among  paragraphs 
of  all  sizes,  of  both  an  interesting  and  amusing  character. 
Probably  this  was  after  all  the  most  amusing  item  in  the  column. 
But  mistakes  will  happen.  Another,  but  less  plausible  explana 
tion  would  be,  that  the  compiler  pasted  a  paragraph  on  "  upside- 
down  ;  "  but  as  the  proof-reader  would  probably  have  detected 
25* 


294  SECRETS   OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

this  at  once,  the  preponderance  of  probabilities  is  in  favor  of 
the  former  theory. 

A  paragraph  in  a  Philadelphia  paper  begins  this  way : 

A  HUMAN  MACHINE.  —  The  Paris  correspondent  of  the  Baltimore  Gazette 
writes :  "  A  curious  phenomenon  can  be  witnessed  in  the  Saint  Antoine 
Hospital.  A  young  man,  a  singer  in  a  cafe  concert,  was  wounded  during 
the  war  in  the  head  by  a  ball,  etc." 

I  had  thought  I  was  indifferently  familiar  with  history,  but  I 
have  to  confess  that  I  do  not  know  in  what  age  this  "  war  in  the 
head  "  occurred ;  nor  have  I  the  most  distant  notion  of  what  it 
was  about,  who  the  combatants  were  or  how  it  terminated.  A 
war  in  a  whole  country  is  bad  enough  in  its  devastations,  but 
condense  a  whole  war  so  as  to  confine  it  within  a  human  being's 
skull,  and  how  the  "poor  head"  thus  made  the  battle-ground 
must  hum  !  I  have  suffered  much,  in  various  ways,  but  heaven 
grant  that  I  may  never  be  subjected  to  this  crowning  torture,  a 
"war  in  the  head!  " 

Says  a  Philadelphia  paper  : 

A  sign  of  a  Market  Street  restaurant :  "  Wines  liquors  and  oysters  stewed." 

Thereupon,  a  contemporary,  in  the  "commenting"  mood, 
quotes  the  paragraph,  and  adds : 

A  good  brandy  stew  is  very  palatable,  but  at  any  time  give  us  port-wine 
cut  in  thin  slices  and  fried  in  butter.  A  gallon  of  Bourbon  whisky  nicely 
roasted  with  sweet  potatoes  and  carrots,  makes  a  very  fine  dinner.  But  we 
cannot  see  how  people  can  eat  great  chunks  of  baked  ale. 

For  many  years  the  (( country  editor  "  has  been  a  fruitful  sub 
ject  of  anecdote,  and  almost  as  many  stories  are  extant  con 
cerning  him  as  there  are  of  "an  Irishman."  It  is  of  course 
needless  to  say  that  most  of  these  stories  are  invented  by  jour 
nalists  in  their  mischievous  moments,  and  also  to  add  that  many 


HUMORS   OF  JOURNALISM.  2$$ 

of  the  most  thoughtful,  able  and  upright  men  of  the  nation 
are  "country  editors."  One  of  the  best  stories  of  which  the 
"  country  editor  "  is  made  the  victim,  and  one  which  has  very 
generally  had  the  run  of  the  press,  is  related  of  an  editor  some 
where  down  South,  who  conceived  a  plan  whereby  to  "beat " 
a  rival  editor.  In  accordance  with  his  scheme,  he  hired  a  man 
to  shoot  at  him, —  and  miss  him,  of  course, — just  before  the 
time  the  two  weeklies  were  to  go  to  press,  and  he  had  an  ac 
count  of  the  "attempted  assassination"  already  written  up, 
and  even  partly  in  type.  Unluckily,  the  hired  "assassin" 
did  n't  aim  badly  enough,  when  he  fired  from  the  wood  just 
without  the  village,  and  brought  the  editor  down,  "  severely 
wounded."  The  result  was,  the  rival  editor  did  publish  a  brief 
report  of  the  affair,  while  the  account  already  so  carefully 
prepared,  and  which  represented  him  as  uninjured,  wouldn't 
do  to  go  in ;  and  so  the  paper  of  the  enterprising  editor  had  to 
go  to  press  without  a  word  about  the  "  attempted  assassination." 

Another  good  one  is  told  of  a  "  country  editor  "  out  West, 
who  one  day  discovered  a  man  hanging  to  a  tree,  dead,  and 
thinking  to  make  the  item  of  news  an  "exclusive,"  took  the 
body  down,  concealed  it  and  hung  it  up  again  just  before  his 
paper  was  to  go  to  press.  But  unfortunately  he  was  caught  at 
it,  and  arrested  on  suspicion  of  murder.  He  had  nothing  to 
say  on  the  subject  in  the  forthcoming  issue  of  his  paper ;  but 
the  rival  editor  had,  as  he  delayed  his  edition  a  short  time  to 
give  an  account  of  the  affair,  so  far  as  then  known,  to  which 
was  appended  this  editorial  remark:  "We  always  did  think 
this  man  was  a  murderer  at  heart ;  now  we  have  proof  of  it." 

One  of  the  saddest  things  that  ever  happened  a  "country 
editor  "  is  thus  related  :  A  Jersey  editor  had  occasion  to  men 
tion,  in  a  complimentary  way,  a  popular  clergyman,  "  Rev. 
James  Dougherty."  The  compositor  to  whom  was  intrusted 


296  SECRETS   OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

the  task  of  making  the  corrections  marked  on  the  proof-sheet 
found  that,  unless  a  few  letters  could  be  omitted  somewhere,  he 
would  have  a  good  deal  of  trouble  in  the  way  of  "  overrunning  " 
a  long  paragraph.  He  consulted  the  Editor,  who  substituted 
one  or  two  short  words  for  one  or  two  long  ones,  and  still  the 
compositor  said  it  would  be  difficult  to  justify  the  line  in  which 
Mr.  Dougherty's  name  occurred. 

"  Well,  abbreviate  the  first  name,  then,"  said  the  Editor, 
meaning  to  make  it  " Jas."  instead  of  "James." 

But  the  compositor  had  his  own  ideas  of  the  abbreviation  of 
the  name  of  James,  and  the  Editor  was  shocked,  when  the  paper 
came  out,  to  find  that  he  had,  in  his  complimentary  notice  of 
the  clergyman,  alluded  to  him  as  "  Rev.  Jim  Dougherty." 

Hoaxes  are  sometimes  perpetrated  by  newspapers,  and  about 
the  first  day  of  the  fourth  month  of  the  year  it  is  just  as  well  to 
read  the  newspapers  with  great  calmness.  Many  citizens  of 
Boston,  on  one  such  occasion,  walked  down  to  the  beach,  in  very 
bad  weather,  to  view  an  immense  whale  there  stranded, —  which 
animal,  I  need  scarcely  hint,  only  existed  in  the  lively  imagina 
tion  of  a  reporter  on  one  of  the  morning  papers ;  and  not  a 
few,  a  year  later,  called  at  the  City  Hall  of  that  city  to  see  some 
wonderful  performing  mice  which  had  been  presented  to  the 
Mayor  by  a  foreign  prince,  and  which  his  Honor,  with  a 
fatherly  kind  of  love  for  the  public,  had  decided  to  exhibit  for 
a  day  or  two  —  free  of  charge,  of  course. 

Sometimes  papers  commit  the  blunder  —  and  feel  very  cheap 
over  it  —  of  publishing  a  man's  obituary  notice  in  advance  of 
the  important  event  calculated  to  call  for  any  such  publication. 
I  was  once  connected  with  a  paper  that  met  with  this  misfortune, 
and  the  next  day  the  subject  of  the  notice,  not  only  alive,  but 
in  unusually  good  health,  came  in  and  said  that  of  course  at 
some  time  or  other  he  probably  would  die,  and  the  notice  would 


PRIMITIVE   JOURNALISM.  297 

have  to  be  repeated ;  so  he  would  be  obliged  if  we  would,  just 
while  we  thought  of  it,  change  the  date  of  his  birth  to  the  22d 
of  June,  instead  of  the  28th  of  July,  as  erroneously  stated  in 
the  published  sketch  of  his  life.  It  was  another  man  of  the 
same  name,  but  not  nearly  so  eminent,  who  had  really  died. 

In  like  manner,  editors  sometimes  write  notices  of  theatrical 
performances  without  having  seen  or  heard  from  such  perform 
ances,  merely  surmising  "  about  what  they  were  like  "  from  the 
previously-published  advertisements.  This  works  well  enough 
except  when  there  is  an  entirely  unanticipated  change  of  pro 
gramme,  and  the  Editor  compliments  several  actors  in  "Our 
American  Cousin"  at  the  So-and-So  Theater  last  evening; 
whereas,  owing  to  the  sudden  illness  of  a  leading  actor  (one  of 
those  so  highly  praised),  it  was  not  played  at  all,  a  piece  of  an 
entirely  different  character  having  been  substituted.  I  have 
known  of  such  sad  occurrences  more  than  once,  and  when  they 
do  happen  the  Editor  is  so  mortified  that  nearly  a  week  elapses 
before  he  feels  like  asking  the  Manager  for  six  reserved  seats. 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

PRIMITIVE  JOURNALISM. 

WHEN  a  newspaper  is  started  in  a  country  town,  no 
matter  how  weak  its  editor  may  happen  to  be,  no 
matter  how  defective  its  make-up,  no  matter  how  crowded  with 
typographic  errors  its  columns,  no  matter  how  bungling  its 
press-work,  it  is  still  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  It  is  a  step 
toward  the  dissemination  of  news  and  knowledge,  and  the  in 
terchange  of  thought ;  toward  inviting  and  encouraging  the  dis- 


298  SECRETS   OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

cussion  of  important  questions  affecting  the  general  welfare; 
toward  spreading  enlightenment,  and  dispelling  prejudice,  igno 
rance  and  superstition.  A  newspaper  is  always  a  step  in  the 
right  direction ;  and  the  man  who  has  built  one  up  where  there 
was  none  before,  is,  like  him  who  has  caused  one  blade  of  grass 
to  grow  in  a  spot  where  before  all  was  barren,  a  public  bene 
factor.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  any  one  ever  yet  started  a  news 
paper  with  the  deliberate  intention  of  doing  public  harm  with 
it,  even  for  his  own  aggrandizement. 

Fifty  years  ago  newspapers  labored  under  many  difficulties 
that  have  since  been  removed  (particularly  in  large  cities)  by 
the  invention  and  adoption  of  wonderful  machinery ;  but  those 
same  difficulties  are  still  encountered  by  many  newspapers  in 
remote  quarters  of  the  country,  the  proprietors  thereof  possess 
ing  limited  pecuniary  resources.  The  defects  often  extend  to 
the  editorial,  as  well  as  the  mechanical,  department  of  the 
country  paper;  and  indeed  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect 
from  the  editor  of  a  country  weekly  the  same  keenness,  fore 
sight,  readiness  and  judgment  we  find  in  the  editor  of  a  city 
daily.  The  "country  paper"  and  the  "country  editor," 
therefore,  as  hinted  in  another  chapter,  frequently  become  the 
subjects  of  humorous  allusions,  but  are  far  from  being  the  sub 
jects  of  contempt.  I  see  something  to  admire,  something  to 
respect,  in  the  poorest  and  weakest  editor  of  the  smallest  and 
most  unpretending  "  country  paper,"  for  I  find  him  laboring  to 
add  something  to  the  good  of  his  community,  to  enhance  the 
knowledge  of  his  neighbors,  and  to  inspire  them  with  senti 
ments  which,  in  all  sincerity,  he  believes  to  be  in  the  interests 
of  truth  —  and  he  is  much  oftener  right  than  wrong. 

On  the  Pacific  coast,  rude  in  its  freshness  from  the  hand  of 
nature,  barely  abandoned  to  civilization,  by  wild  beasts  and 
wild  men,  "Primitive  Journalism"  has  held  many  a  revel 


PRIMITIVE   JOURNALISM.  299 

within  the  past  quarter  of  a  century ;  and  in  the  newspaper 
world  of  California,  Oregon  and  Nevada,  there  is  a  free-and- 
easy,  a  jolly,  reckless,  devil-may-care  spirit  that  must  provoke 
mirth  wherever  it  touches.  It  is  rich  in  pointed  expression,  in 
blunt  words  whose  meaning  cannot  well  be  mistaken,  in  state 
ments  entirely  ingenuous  and  unambiguous. 
For  example,  a  Nevada  paper  says : 

The  many  friends  of  Bill  Thompson  will  regret  to  hear  that  he  was 
hashed  up  by  a  catamount  the  other  day  on  Nixon's  Hill,  while  lying  in 
wait  to  shoot  a  Chinaman.  This  was  always  a  world  of  disappointment. 

Hundreds  of  such  paragraphs  go  the  rounds ;  and  who  can 
help  smiling  at  the  bold  simplicity  with  which,  in  this  case,  a 
subject  so  momentous  to  Mr.  Thompson  is  treated  ?  Who,  too, 
would  fail  to  gather  from  the  tone  of  this  paragraph  that  the 
loss  of  Bill  Thompson  (probably  a  desperado)  was  not  exactly 
regarded  as  a  public  calamity  ? 

There  appeared  in  a  San  Francisco  paper,  a  few  years  ago,  a 
burlesque  account  of  the  editing  a  country  paper  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  written  by  a  humorist  —  "  O.  Job  Jones" — who  never 
attained  the  distinction  of  an  Artemus  Ward,  a  Mark  Twain 
or  a  Josh  Billings;  and  although  it  goes  into  the  regions  of 
hyperbole,  there  is  in  it  an  air  of  naturalness  suggesting  that 
its  author  had  "been  there,"  and  which  also  suggests  that  it 
would  not  be  out  of  place  in  this  chapter : 

THE  WEEKLY  THUNDERGUST. 

BY   O.    JOB   JONES. 

Tired  of  the  restrictions  of  life  in  the  city,  where  one  is  surrounded  by 
courts  of  justice,  magistrates  and  policemen,  We  decided  to  go  to  an  interior 
town  and  start  a  country  newspaper.  We  chose  for  the  scene  of  Our  jour 
nalistic  labors  the  rising  town  of  Revolverville,  and  soon  established  there 
a  first-class  paper,  which  we  styled  the  Weekly  Thundergust. 


30O  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

In  the  same  town  there  was  already  published  a  weekly  "  sheet"  of  despi 
cable  characteristics;  it  was  known  as  the  Blunderbuss.  It  was  a  political 
paper;  and  We,  of  course,  in  starting  Our  own  ably-conducted  journal, 
took  strong  political  grounds  on  the  opposite  side.  We  launched  out  under 
difficulties,  to  be  sure.  We  were  not  cursed  with  "  dead  loads  "  of  "  col 
lateral,"  and  were  obliged  to  come  before  the  public  in  a  spirit  of  modesty. 
We  possessed  but  a  little  over  a  quart  of  type,  both  upper  and  lower  case, 
and  a  small  copying-press,  which  We  were  able  to  run  without  assistance ; 
and  with  these  limited  appliances  We  could  only  appear  before  the  public 
with  a  four-page  sheet,  quarto  size. 

We  were,  of  course,  sole  editor  and  proprietor;  We  employed  Ourself  as 
foreman  and  compositor ;  We  were  Our  own  boy ;  and  We  did  Our  own 
press-work.  Besides  all  this,  We  canvassed  for  subscribers,  solicited  adver 
tisements,  collected  bills,  and  attended  to  the  mailing  department.  The 
disbursing  of  the  establishment  was  also  one  of  Our  own  duties. 

Despite  all  the  disadvantages  under  which  We  labored  at  the  beginning, 
Our  paper  prospered ;  its  circulation  swelled  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  in  the  short  space  of  two  months,  and  We  gave  Our  patrons  a  treat 
by  enlarging  it  half  a  column.  To  say  that  "things  went  on  swimmingly," 
would  fall  as  far  short  of  an  adequate  expression  as  it  would  be  trite;  so, 
We  won't  say  it. 

However  bitterly  We  and  the  editor  of  the  Blunderbuss  hated  and  reviled 
each  other  in  a  political  way,  we  were  socially  and  fraternally  on  intimate 
and  friendly  terms,  ever  ready  to  lend  each  other  a  helping  hand  in  the 
way  of  getting  our  papers  out.  For  example,  should  one  run  a  little  short 
of  letter  of  any  particular  kind,  he  had  no  hesitation  about  going  to  the 
other  and  borrowing  some  to  help  him  out  of  a  tight  place ;  and  when  he 
got  stuck  on  a  word  he  came  to  Us  in  the  most  brotherly  manner  and  was 
granted  free  access  to  Our  Dictionary ;  while  We  were  always  at  liberty  to 
visit  his  establishment  and  refer  to  his*  copy  of  Smith's  Grammar,  or  the 
eight  exchanges  that  shed  a  ray  of  journalistic  light  over  his  sanctum. 

But  in  our  editorial  columns  we  uniformly  painted  each  other  with  the 
blackness  of  darkness,  charging  our  pens  with  the  bitterness  of  gall  and 
the  gall  of  bitterness. 

One  day,  feeling  in  an  unusually  happy  mood,  We  penned  a  scathing 
rebuke  to  the  Blunderbuss,  in  which  We  blackened  the  character  of  the 
editor,  traced  his  pedigree,  and  called  his  grandmother  anything  but  a 


PRIMITIVE   JOURNALISM.  3OI 

gentleman.  In  our  enthusiasm,  We  made  it  rather  longer  than  our  leaders 
usually  were,  so  that,  when  it  came  to  be  set  up,  it  about  cleaned  out  Our  case 
of  five-line  pica, —  a  commodious  size  of  type  which  We  were  in  the  habit 
of  using  in  Our  editorial  columns.  In  fact,  Our  letter  of  this  size  ran  out, 
and  We  were  obliged  either  to  substitute  a  few  of  another  size, —  and  We 
had  nothing  nearer  than  minion, —  or  go  to  Our  bitter  friend,  the  editor  of 
the  Blunderbuss^  and  borrow  what  We  required.  We  needed  the  letter  "  d," 
to  complete  the  word  "  black-hearted,"  having  used  an  unusual  number, 
with  dashes  between  them,  in  the  course  of  Our  allusions  to  Our  contempo 
rary.  We  also  lacked  the  "r"  in  "  liar,"  and  the  "y  "  in  "double-dyed." 

So,  laying  down  Our  stick,  We  left  Our  article  in  type  and  went  over  to 
the  Blunderbuss  office,  across  the  street  —  very  hastily,  too,  for  it  was  near 
Our  time  of  going  to  press.  We  readily  obtained  the  letters  We  wanted, 
and  returning  to  Our  rooms  We  discovered  that  some  fiend  in  human  form 
—  it  may  have  been  the  "  devil"  of  the  Blunderbuss  —  had  actually  entered 
Our  sacred  composing-room  in  Our  absence  and  carried  off  the  type  in 
which  We  had  just  been  setting  Our  leader,  We  having  left  it  nearly 
finished,  as  stated,  on  a  galley. 

Appalled  at  this  startling  discovery,  We  rushed  frantically  across  the 
street  again  and  communicated  the  heart-rending  intelligence  to  the  editor 
of  the  Blunderbuss. 

"  Too  bad  !  "  he  exclaimed,  with  a  kind-hearted  oath.  "  Do  you  think 
you  can  find  the  rascal  ?  Here,  take  my  revolver!  " 

"No,  no;  not  now!"  We  said.  "Next  week  I  will  take  a  holiday, 
hunt  him  up  and  shoot  him." 

"  Well,  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  I  will  lend  you  whatever  type  I  can, — 
or,"  said  he,  as  a  bright  idea  seemed  to  strike  him,  "  I  can  lend  you  some 
excellent  matter  already  in  type  which  has  been  crowded  out  of  the  Blun 
derbuss  by  a  whole  column  of  '  ads.'  that  came  in  a  little  while  ago.  Just 
the  thing, —  several  able  articles, —  take  whichever  you  want.  You  will 
have  no  bother  with  it.  It  has  already  been  corrected  and  is  ready  for  the 
press." 

"Glorious!"  We  exclaimed,  with  animation.  "An  article  of  two  or 
three  stickfuls  will  do.  What  are  the  subjects?  " 

"  Well,  there  is  one  poem  of  eight  verses,  on  '  Friendship.'  " 

"  O,  confound  the  poetry, —  and  friendship,  too;  I  don't  believe  in  itl 
What  else?" 
26 


3O2  SECRETS   OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

"  An  editorial  on  '  Chinese  Immigration  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.' " 

"  That  may  not  be  consistent  with  the  tone  of  the  Thundergvst.  Any 
thing  else  ?  " 

"Yes;  a  very  elaborate  article  on  'Julius  Caesar,'  contrasting  him  with 
P.  T.  Barnum  and  George  Francis  Train." 

•'  That's  the  thing  !     Where  is  it  ?  " 

The  editor  went  into  his  composing-room  and  soon  returned  with  the 
article  in  type,— which  was  just  about  what  We  wanted, —  and  without 
even  looking  at  it,  trusting  to  the  good  taste  of  Our  contemporary,  We 
rushed  across  the  street,  placed  it  on  Our  imposing-stone,  with  Our  other 
matter,  made  up  Our  paper,  locked  Our  forms  and  went  to  press. 

In  another  hour  Our  paper  for  that  week  was  issued. 

Heavens  !  "  Horrors  on  horror's  head  accumulate  I  "  What  were  Our 
consternation  and  chagrin  at  discovering  that  the  borrowed  article  We  had 
laid  before  the  public  was  not,  as  the  perfidious  editor  of  the  Blunderbuss 
had  represented,  an  essay  on  J.  Caesar,  but  a  most  withering  dissection  of 
Ourself — Us,  the  editor  of  the  irrepressible  Thundergust ! —  and  this  poison 
ous  load  of  invective  against  Ourself  had  appeared  before  the  public  in  Our 
own  editorial  columns  !  It  was  sickening  to  the  journalistic  soul  to  think  of  it ! 

As  an  example  of  the  barbarous  style  of  the  editor  of  the  Blunderbuss, 
We  quote  it: 

"THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  THUNDERGUST  —  WHO,  WHAT,  WHERE, 

AND  How  HE  is. 

"This  would-be  demagogue  —  this  creature  (we  cannot  style  it  a  man)  — 
this  concentrated  batch  of  moral  corruption  —  this  hideous  monster  whom  it 
were  base  flattery  to  call  an  alligator,  crocodile,  terrapin,  mock-turtle,  frog, 
toad,  scorpion,  bumble-bee  —  that  at  present  scourges  this  honest  and  intel 
ligent  community,  is  named  o.  job  jones.  Of  course,  it  must  have  some 
name.  It  lacks  even  the  poorest  traits  of  the  common  cur ;  a  bull-dog  is 
dignified  compared  with  it!  It  has  not  the  common  instincts  of  a  cat;  its 
clothes  fail  to  fit  it;  it  is  unable  to  dance;  it  is  ugly,  hateful,  abominable  — 
red-faced,  red-nosed,  red-mouthed,  red-eyed  —  anything  but  read  in  com 
mon  decency ;  it  stole  cents  from  its  grandmother  when  a  boy  (a  pity  it 
has  not  retained  them,  for  it  has  none  now) ;  it  swears,  lies,  cheats,  steals, 
gambles,  gets  drunk  every  night,  and  breaks  other  commandments  too 
black  to  mention!  Its  very  dishonesty  is  the  brightest  spot  on  its  character! 
It  would  murder,  did  not  its  cowardly  heart  restrain  it.  But  we  shudder  to 
think  that  a  strict  sense  of  duty  has  compelled  us  to  pollute  these  pure  col 
umns  with  its  name !  Why  waste  further  words  on  it  ?  However,  what 
better  could  be  expected  of  the  party  with  which  this  wretch  is  identified? 
We  pause  for  a  reply." 


PRIMITIVE   JOURNALISM.  303 

The  discovery  of  this  horrible  item  in  Our  own  columns  came  near  par 
alyzing  Us.  We  felt  that  it  would  prove  Our  ruin.  Yet  We  were  mis 
taken.  It  actually  built  Us  up ;  for  while  many  who  read  the  article,  be 
lieving  it  to  be  genuine,  and  accordingly  giving  Us  great  credit  for  truth  and 
candor  in  speaking  of  Ourself,  others  perceived  that  We  had  been  the  inno 
cent  victim  of  a  shameless  trick;  public  sympathy  was  enlisted  in  Our 
favor,  and  in  two  short  weeks  Our  circulation  had  swelled  to  one  hundred 
and  ninety-eight,  and  We  had  a  column  and  three-quarters  of  advertise 
ments  !  We  also  had  seven  papers  on  Our  exchange  list. 

What  might  have  been  the  end  of  this  prosperous  state  of  things,  had  it 
been  allowed  to  go  on,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  But,  alas  !  an  evil  day  came, 
and  misfortune  overtook  Us !  One  day,  about  a  month  later,  when  local 
items  were  scarce,  We  very  injudiciously  published  a  little  fictitious  stoiy 
concerning  the  wife  of  a  prominent  citizen,  reflecting  slightly  on  her  char 
acter,  and  some  were  foolish  enough  to  get  indignant  about  it.  The  hus 
band  was  absent  at  the  time,  or  he  would  probably  have  put  Us  to  the  incon 
venience  of  killing  him;  but  the  "  citizens  "  waited  on  us  in  relation  to  the 
matter.  Quite  a  concourse  of  the  bloodthirsty  rascals  — two  of  her  brothers 
among  them — collected  in  front  of  Our  office,  calling  loudly  for  Our  gore, 
while  a  delegation  of  nine,  bringing  with  them  a  good,  substantial  rope, 
entered  Our  sanctum  and  urgently  invited  Us  out  to  deliver  a  brief  address 
to  the  mob.  Luckily  We  had  seen  their  approach  and  taken  measures  to 
avoid  this  honor.  We  had  raised  Our  back  window  and  seen  that  the  coast 
was  clear  in  that  direction,  and  We  nimbly  sprang  out,  and  —  the  darkness 
of  evening  favoring  us  —  made  the  best  time  on  record  in  the  direction  of  a 
thick  grove  of  trees,  which  We  boldly  faced  —  leaving  behind  Us  Our  valu 
able  type,  Our  neat  hand-press,  Our  manuscripts,  Our  money  —  $1.35  —  and 
Our  hat. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  it  would  not  have  been  safe  for  the  people  of  the  town 
had  We  exhibited  Our  intelligent  countenance  in  that  vicinity  again,  so  We 
have  not  been  heard  of  since ;  but  We  subsequently  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  copy  of  the  next  week's  Blunderbtiss,  in  which  was  a  full  account  of  Our 
exodus  and  the  circumstances  attending  it,  and  in  which  the  editor  had  per 
petrated  a  coarse  and  cruel  jest  concerning  Us,  to  the  effect  that  We  had 
become  imbued  with  piety,  stopped  publishing  a  wicked  political  newspaper, 
and  gone  to  making  tracks. 


3°4  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

CHAPTER   XXXII. 

OUR  DAILIES  AND   WEEKLIES. 

I  THINK  there  is  in  this  country  an  aspect  of  newspaper  enter 
prise  that  amounts  to  grandeur.  Not  that  we  are  free  from 
grave  defects ;  not  that  even  our  ablest  journals  might  not  in 
some  respects  improve  their  style ;  not  but  that  things  are  done 
and  allowed  in  many  of  our  newspaper  establishments  that 
ought  not  to  be  done  and  allowed ;  not,  in  a  word,  that  we 
have  arrived  at  perfection,  an  attribute  that  does  not  seem  yet 
to  have  fastened  itself  upon  any  human  being,  in  any  sphere  or 
vocation;  but  because,  in  our  impatient  thirst  for  news  and 
new  ideas,  we  have  penetrated  the  remotest  spots  of  earth  and 
the  deepest  mazes  of  science  and  thought.  When  a  newspaper 
establishment  sends  an  expedition  to  the  heart  of  Africa,  in 
search  of  a  scientific  explorer  whose  fate  is  doubtful,  and  even 
succeeds  in  its  object  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Stanley  expedition, 
sent  out  by  the  New  York  Herald  in  search  of  Dr.  Living 
stone),  it  does  an  act  worthy  of  the  dignity  of  a  nation. 

Many  other  instances  might  be  mentioned  in  which  immense 
expenditures  of  money  and  talent  have  been  freely  made  by 
American  newspapers  in  the  interests  of  science,  benevolence, 
civilization,  accounts  of  which  read  almost  like  fiction. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  weekly  journal  may  be  conducted 
as  a  pastime,  compared  with  the  daily ;  yet  it  is  a  great  work 
to  conduct  even  a  weekly  as  it  ought  to  be  conducted.  But  it 
is  the  daily  that  is  the  giant.  It  is  the  daily  that  lifts  up  its 
mighty  proportions,  as  it  were,  the  Temple  of  Thought.  It  is 
the  daily  whose  voice,  like  the  waves  breaking  with  end 
less  murmurs  upon  the  sand,  is  speaking  all  day  long,  and 


OUR  DAILIES  AND   WEEKLIES.  305 

through  the  deep  still  hours  of  the  night,  making  and  molding 
public  opinion,  and  almost  saying  :  "  I  reign."  Once  I  walked 
through  the  press-room  of  the  New  York  Tribune  with  a  well- 
known  literary  gentleman,  who  stopped  and,  with  a  thoughtful 
expression  upon  his  poetic  face,  pointed  to  an  eight-cylinder 
press  that  was  thundering  away  and  sending  the  rapidly-printed 
sheets  into  the  folding-machine,  remarking : 

' '  Hercules  was  a  fool  to  that ! ' ' 

"It  is  through  much  tribulation  that  we  enter  into  the  king 
dom  of  heaven,"  says  one  of  the  apostles;  and  it  might  be 
added  that  it  is  through  much  more  tribulation  that  a  man  ever 
reaches  either  intellectual  eminence  or  financial  prosperity  in 
running  either  a  daily  or  weekly  newspaper.  The  most  con 
stant  attention  and  the  most  careful  supervision  of  details  are 
necessary  to  lift  a  paper  up  to  a  standard  of  respectability  and 
to  financial  success.  Eternal  vigilance  must  be  exercised  to 
keep  its  columns  pure  and  to  exclude  from  them  such  question 
able  matter  as  might  make  it  worthy  of  popular  condemnation ; 
and  its  finances  must  be  managed  with  the  most  delicate  care. 
The  expenses  of  a  newspaper  —  especially  a  large  daily  —  are 
enormous,  amounting  in  some  cases  to  between  twenty-five 
thousand  and  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  week,  and  the  calcula 
tions  for  a  margin  of  profit  must  be  well  made,  as  an  excess  of 
expenditure  over  receipts  would  soon  destroy  the  equilibrium  of 
such  an  institution,  and  possibly  lead  to  a  general  crash. 

The  expenses  of  a  weekly  are  proportionately  smaller,  but 
assiduous  work  is  necessary  to  success.  Among  the  various  trials 
that  editors  of  papers  —  particularly  weeklies  —  have  to  endure, 
is  the  work  of  reading  many  manuscripts,  both  "communica 
tions"  and  "voluntary  contributions"  from  persons  whose  de 
fective  style  is  mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  wholly  unac 
customed  to  writing  for  the  press.  Sometimes  the  Editor  is 
26*  U 


306  SECRETS  OF   THE   SANCTUM. 

seized  with  a  spirit  of  malice,  and  publishes  an  average  "con 
tribution  "  as  his  only  means  of  being  revenged  upon  its  writer 
for  boring  him.  Here  is  an  example  of  this  kind  from  the 
Philadelphia  Sunday  Times,  and  it  shows  what  kind  of  "stuff" 
an  editor  is  daily  called  upon  to  read  and  "do  something  or 
other  with  "  in  the  process  of  separating  the  wheat  from  the  chaff: 

TO  A  FRIENDE. 

BY   J.    S. 


Do  you  remember  those  happy  hours 

of  the  by-gone  olden  time 
when  side  by  side  we  gathered  flowers 

or  inurmord  some  sweet  old  rhyme 
often  those  hours  do  haunt  me 

and  in  fancy  i  linger  still 
where  the  silvery  sun  fleshed  so  clear 

from  the  shade  of  those  Lovely  hills. 

The  trouble  is,  there  are  too  few  people  who  have  a  proper 
sense  of  what  the  true  mission  of  a  newspaper  is.  Many  seem 
to  think  that  its  columns  should  be  given  up  at  random  to  Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry,  for  the  insertion  of  trash,  such  as  the  above 
"poem,"  or  in  the  still  less  pleasing  shape  of  "communica 
tions"  on  subjects  personal,  and  not  touching  the  general  wel 
fare.  "  The  true  business  of  a  newspaper,"  says  the  Worcester 
Spy,  "is  to  publish  the  news,  report  what  is  going  on  in  the 
world  and  discuss  questions  of  public  interest."  This  is  the 
case  in  a  nutshell.  The  Editor  does  not  do  his  duty  to  his  sub 
scribers  if  he  does  not  endeavor  to  give  all  the  news  possibly 
obtainable,  with  careful  and  impartial  editorial  opinions,  and 
to  such  matter  give  the  precedence  over  everything  approaching 
the  sphere  of  trash. 

In  the  United  States  more  than  in  any  other  country  news 
papers  are  read  by  the  masses,  and  here  the  papers  are  more 


OUR   DAILIES  AND   WEEKLIES.  307 

numerous,  grow  to  larger  proportions,  generally,  and  have  a 
wider  range  than  newspapers  in  other  countries.  "  Nothing 
interests  the  American  more  in  Europe,"  a  well-known  Amer 
ican  journalist  writes  from  London,  "than  the  curiosity  of  the 
people  of  all  classes  in  regard  to  the  United  States.  It  must  be 
confessed  that  there  is  far  more  knowledge  of  the  older  nations 
in  our  country  than  there  is  among  the  Europeans  in  regard  to 
us.  The  average  American  is  more  fully  posted  upon  matters 
of  government  and  society  abroad  than  the  average  Englishman, 
Frenchman  or  German,  and  this  results  from  several  palpable 
influences,  of  course,  the  inquisitive  spirit  of  our  people,  and 
chiefly  to  the  vigilant  attention  paid  to  foreign  matters  by  our 
newspapers."  There  is  a  great  difference  between  American 
and  English  newspapers.  The  latter,  while  aiming  to  be  truthful, 
dignified  and  impersonal,  are  heavy  and  dull.  The  American 
journals,  while  going  the  whole  length  in  news-gathering  enter 
prise,  find  space  for  "spice,"  and  nearly  all  have  their  little 
"squibs"  in  the  editorial  columns,  and  departments  of  light 
paragraphs,  original  and  selected,  with  some  such  head  as  "  Odds 
and  Ends,"  "All-Sorts,"  "Chaff,"  "Frivolities,"  "Varieties," 
"Jocosities,"  or  "Fun."  Our  weeklies  especially  devote  a 
fair  share  of  space  to  the  "rich"  things  that  are  "going  the 
rounds,"  and  many  of  them  give  in  each  issue  a  column  of 
humorous  paragraphs  as  productive  of  healthful  mirth  as  a  first- 
class  comedy. 

I  believe  the  American  newspapers  do  no  great  harm  by 
making  their  readers  smile ;  but  if  it  is  an  offense  so  to  do,  it  is 
one  of  which  the  English  press  is  seldom  guilty.  True,  the 
English  have  their  humorous  papers,  such  as  Punch,  Judy  and 
Fun,  which  occasionally  "get  off  good  things,"  but,  take  them 
one  day  with  another,  they  are  very  grave  compared  with  the 
American  humorous  papers.  If  you  pay  threepence  for  Punch, 


308  SECRETS   OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

and  if  you  get  your  ' '  threepenny  'orth"  of  fun  out  of  it,  you 
certainly  get  a  dollar's  worth  of  the  article  out  of  a  ten-cent 
American  humorous  paper. 

I  have  been  led  to  make  these  comparisons  because  an  Eng 
lish  gentleman  not  long  since  saw  fit  to  inform  me  that  the 
papers  "at  'ome  "  were  incomparably  superior  to  the  American 
papers,  adding,  in  a  bantering  way  : 

"  Why,  in  England,  we  laugh  at  the  American  papers !  " 

Upon  the  suggestion  that  probably  they  did  "laugh  at  our 
humorous  papers,  which  was  more  than  we  could  do  at  the 
English  humorous  papers,"  he  manifested  a  lively  disposition  to 
change  the  subject,  and  exhibited  a  sudden  and  wonderful  in 
terest  in  the  weather,  which  he  remarked  was  "bloody  'ot." 

I  have  made  these  allusions  in  no  spirit  of  unkindness,  for  I 
am  certainly  without  any  shadow  of  prejudice  against  our  Eng 
lish  cousins.  I  have  among  them  many  excellent  friends,  and 
they  are  a  jolly  good  set  of  fellows ;  but  they  cannot  help  giving 
at  least  full  credit  to  the  excellence  of  things  "at  'ome,  you 
know." 

The  following,  appertaining  to  the  American  and  English 
press,  and  containing  much  information  on  the  subject,  I  quote 
from  Mr.  Ingersoll's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Horace  Greeley  :  " 

When  Mr.  Greeley  arrived  in  England  (in  1851),  the  discussion  of  "the 
taxes  on  knowledge,"  which  had  for  some  time  attracted  much  attention  from 
the  general  public,  had  reached  Parliament,  where  the  repeal  of  such  taxation 
had  many  friends.  A  committee,  of  which  the  Right  Hon.  T.  Milnor 
Gibson  was  chairman,  and  the  celebrated  Richard  Cobden  one  of  the 
members,  had  the  subject  in  charge,  and  requested  Mr.  Greeley  to  appear 
and  give  them  the  results  of  his  experience  and  observation.  He  was 
examined  at  great  length  by  the  committee.  The  taxes  complained  of  were 
an  impost  upon  advertisements,  and  a  stamp  tax  of  one  penny  per  copy  on 
every  newspaper.  The  substantial  portions  of  Mr.  Greeley's  examination 
were  as  follows : 


OUR  DAILIES  AND   WEEKLIES.  309 

Your  duty  is  the  same  on  the  advertisements  in  a  journal  with  fifty  thou 
sand  circulation,  as  in  a  journal  with  one  thousand,  although  the  value  of 
the  article  is  twenty  times  as  much  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The 
duty  operates  precisely  as  though  you  were  to  lay  a  tax  of  one  shilling  a 
day  on  every  day's  labor  that  a  man  were  to  do;  to  a  man  whose  labor  is 
worth  two  shillings  a  day,  it  would  be  destructive;  while  by  a  man  who 
earns  twenty  shillings  a  day,  it  would  be  very  lightly  felt.  An  advertise 
ment  is  worth  but  a  certain  amount,  and  the  public  soon  get  to  know  what 
it  is  worth ;  you  put  a  duty  on  advertisements,  and  you  destroy  the  value  of 
those  coming  to  new  establishments.  People  who  advertise  in  your  well- 
established  journals,  could  afford  to  pay  a  price  to  include  the  duty ;  but  in 
a  new  paper,  the  advertisements  would  not  be  worth  the  amount  of  the  duty 
alone ;  and  consequently  the  new  concern  would  have  no  chance.  Now, 
the  advertisements  are  one  main  source  of  the  income  of  daily  papers,  and 
thousands  of  business  men  take  them  mainly  for  those  advertisements.  For 
instance,  at  the  time  when  our  auctioneers  were  appointed  by  law  (they 
were,  of  course,  party  politicians),  one  journal,  which  was  high  in  the  confi 
dence  of  the  party  in  power,  obtained  not  a  law,  but  an  understanding,  that 
all  the  auctioneers  appointed  should  advertise  in  that  journal.  Now,  though 
the  journal  referred  to  has  ceased  to  be  of  that  party,  and  the  auctioneers  are 
no  longer  appointed  by  the  State,  yet  that  journal  has  almost  the  monopoly 
of  the  auctioneers'  business  to  this  day.  Auctioneers  must  advertise  in  it, 
because  they  know  that  purchasers  are  looking  there  ;  and  purchasers  must 
take  the  paper,  because  they  know  that  it  contains  just  the  advertisements  they 
want  to  see ;  and  this,  without  regard  to  the  goodness  or  the  principles  of 
the  paper.  I  know  men  in  this  town  who  take  one  journal  mainly  for  its 
advertisements,  and  they  must  take  the  Times,  because  everything  is  adver 
tised  in  it ;  for  the  same  reason,  advertisers  must  advertise  in  the  Times.  If 
we  had  a  duty  on  advertisements,  I  will  not  say  it  would  be  impossible  to 
build  up  a  new  concern  in  New  York  against  the  competition  of  the  older 
ones ;  but  I  do  say,  it  would  be  impossible  to  preserve  the  weaker  papers 
from  being  swallowed  up  by  the  stronger. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  Do  you  then  consider  the  fact,  that  the  Times  newspaper 
for  the  last  fifteen  years  has  been  increasing  so  largely  in  circulation,  is  to 
be  accounted  for  mainly  by  the  existence  of  the  advertising  duty  ? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  Yes ;  much  more  than  the  stamp.  By  the  operation  of 
the  advertisement  duty,  an  advertisement  is  charged  ten  times  as  much  in 
one  paper  as  in  another.  An  advertisement  in  the  Times  may  be  worth  five 
pounds,  while  in  another  paper  it  is  only  worth  one  pound ;  but  the  duty  is 
the  same. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  From  what  you  have  stated  with  regard  to  the  circulation 
of  the  daily  papers  6f  New  York,  it  appears  that  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  adult  population  must  be  customers  for  them  ? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  Yes ;  I  think  three-fourths  of  all  the  families  take  a 
daily  paper  of  some  kind. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  The  purchasers  of  the  daily  papers  must  consist  of  a  dif 
ferent  class  from  those  in  England  ;  mechanics  must  purchase  them  ? 


310  SECRETS  OF  THE   SANCTUM. 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  Every  mechanic  takes  a  paper,  or  nearly  every  one. 

Mr.  EWART.  —  Having  observed  both  countries,  can  you  state  whether 
the  press  has  greater  influence  on  public  opinion  in  the  United  States  than 
in  England,  or  the  reverse? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  I  think  it  has  more  influence  with  us.  I  do  not  know 
that  any  class  k  despotically  governed  by  the  press,  but  its  influence  is  more 
universal ;  every  one  reads  and  talks  about  it  with  us,  and  more  weight  is 
laid  upon  intelligence  than  on  editorials;  the  paper  which  brings  the 
quickest  news  is  the  thing  looked  to. 

Mr.  EWART.  —  The  leading  article  has  not  so  much  influence  as  in  Eng 
land? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  — No;  the  telegraphic  dispatch  is  the  great  point. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  Observing  our  newspapers  and  comparing  them  with  the 
American  papers,  do  you  find  that  we  make  much  less  use  of  the  electric 
telegraph  for  transmitting  news  than  in  America  ? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  Not  a  hundreth  part  as  much  as  we  do. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  An  impression  prevails  in  this  country  that  our  newspaper 
press  incurs  a  great  deal  more  expense  to  expedite  news  than  you  do  in  New 
York.  Are  you  of  that  opinion  ? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  I  do  not  know  what  your  expense  is.  I  should  say  that 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  is  paid  by  our  association  of  the  six 
leading  daily  papers,  besides  what  each  gets  separately  for  itself. 

Mr.  COBDEN.  —  Twenty  thousand  pounds  a  year  is  paid  by  your  associa 
tion,  consisting  of  six  papers,  for  what  you  get  in  common? 

Mr.  GREELEY.  —  Yes;  we  telegraph  a  great  deal  in  the  United  States. 

From  this  time  forth  the  unpopularity  of  "the  taxes  on  knowledge" 
rapidly  increased,  and  they  were  at  length  repealed.  The  people  of  Eng 
land  are  very  greatly  indebted  for  having  the  Cheap  Press  so  soon  as  they 
did  to  the  Founder  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

ONE   WORD  MORE. 

WrHILE  I  have  been  vain  enough,  in  the  course  of  this 
work,  to  praise  the  calling  in  which  I  am  myself  en 
gaged,  to  descant  upon  the  difficult  and  valuable  work  done  by 
journalists,  and  to  applaud  the  mission  of  Journalism,  I  have 
not  been,  and  am  not,  blind  to  the  imperfections  of  those  (my- 


ONE  WORD  MORE.  3 1 1 

self  included)  who  conduct  this  great  institution  —  the  Press, 
I  am  not  visionary  enough  to  hope  that  within  this  generation 
we  shall  reach  Utopian  perfection,  but  there  are  some  faults  in 
the  newspaper  world  —  as  well  as  within  every  other  sphere  — 
that  I  trust  may  soon  be  corrected.  Some  of  our  journals  have 
reached  a  point  of  purity,  of  dignity  and  greatness  at  which 
they  stand  up  like  monuments.  Such  are  the  journals  that  ever 
and  always  aim  to  be  fair,  courteous,  truthful,  never  descending 
to  rude  invective,  coarse  language  or  personal  abuse.  I  trust 
that  the  time  will  soon  come  when  editorials  dictated  by  per 
sonal  malice  will  be  numbered  with  things  obsolete. 

I  want  to  see  the  time,  even  in  this  generation,  when  "dead 
heading  ' '  will  also  be  classed  among  the  things  that  have  passed 
away ;  when  every  editor  will  buy  his  theater  ticket  and  pay  his 
fare  in  the  railroad  car,  like  other  people. 

Editorial  "puffery"  has  already  been  abandoned  by  most  of 
the  advanced  journals  of  the  country,  but  is  still  an  "institu 
tion  ' '  in  the  establishments  of  the  several  lower  strata  of  news 
papers.  I  would  like  to  see  that,  too,  become  entirely  obsolete. 
While  the  habit  is  fostered,  the  editor  can  no  more  be  truthful 
and  ingenuous  than  a  lawyer  pleading  the  case  of  a  culprit 
whom  he  knows  in  his  heart  to  be  guilty.  When  the  merchant, 
or  any  other  business  man,  has  anything  to  say  in  praise  of  his 
wares,  or  his  professional  qualities,  let  him  put  it  in  the  form 
of  an  advertisement,  over  his  name,  that  it  may  so  stand  for 
what  it  is  worth,  without  the  sign  and  seal  of  the  Editor,  who  is 
so  often  called  upon  to  vouch  for  things  of  which  he  knows  as 
little  as  the  oyster  knows  of  the  Nebulous  Theory. 

I  also  yearn  to  see  Jenkinsism  rooted  out  of  the  field  of  Jour 
nalism,  where  it  never  properly  belonged.  It  is  a  vile  weed  ; 
like  Interviewing,  it  has  sprung  up  in  a  night ;  may  they  both 
be  plucked  up  and  cast  out  in  the  light  of  day ! 


312  .  SECRETS  OF  THE  SANCTUM. 

Bohemianism !  I  scarcely  know  what  to  say,  to  wish  or  to 
hope  concerning  it.  Certainly  it  is  a  less  objectionable  feature 
of  journalism  than  the  two  just  mentioned.  Well,  let  it  rest. 
It  is  an  episode  in  journalism,  rather  than  a  thing  belonging  to 
it,  and  it  may  one  day  disappear  along  with  some  other  uncom 
fortable  grades  of  society,  as  society  itself  reaches,  by  many 
gradations,  clearer  perceptions  of  the  "fitness  of  things." 

I  want  to  see  —  might  I  say,  above  all  ? —  the  time  come  when 
the  tone  of  a  newspaper  may  never  once  be  dictated,  or  prejudiced 
"in  the  estimation  of  a  hair,"  by  financial  considerations  — 
when  every  journal  will  speak  just  as  'boldly  against  abuses 
practiced  by  a  corporation  that  advertises  extensively  as  it 
would  if  that  corporation  did  not  advertise  at  all. 

I  long  to  see  the  time  when  "servility  "  shall  have  ceased; 
when  no  man,  or  set  of  men,  or  party,  or  power  shall  dictate 
the  tone  of  a  journal  to  the  end  that  it  shall  waver  one  hair's 
breadth  from  sincerity  and  truthfulness. 

It  is  much  to  hope  for;  but  I  do  hope  for  these  things,  believ 
ing,  yes,  knowing,  that  my  hopes  shall  ultimately  be  realized. 
We  are  all  moving  in  the  direction  of  light ;  standing  on  the 
hill-tops,  intellectual  men  should  be  the  first  to  catch  its  glim 
merings  ;  they  will  be  ever  ;  and  the  time  must  come,  and 
soon,  when  the  Press  of  our  country  will  be  nearer  perfection 
than  now  —  when  nothing  vile,  or  little,  or  mean  will  remain 
to  cast  even  a  shadow  of  reproach  upon  journalists,  the  men 
who  walk  in  the  van  of  Progress  and  live  and  move  in  the 
domain  of  Thought. 


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t*J 


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f;    •        * 


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LD  21-100m-7,'33 


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